Preamble

The House met at Eleven o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRIT

For Paisley, in the room of Douglas Harold Johnston, esquire, Q.C. (one of the Senators of the College of Justice in Scotland.)—[Mr. Bowden.]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

The Hartlepools

Commander Kerans: asked the President of the Board of Trade what is the present rate of unemployment in The Hartlepools; and what are the prospects for future industries coming into the area.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): The current rate in the Hartlepools group of Employment Exchange areas is 3·3 per cent. wholly unemployed, compared with an average rate in 1960 of 4·3 per cent. There are about 2,200 jobs in prospect, but these are nearly all the result of expansions planned by firms already in the area.

Commander Kerans: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that very helpful reply, may I tell him that I appreciate all the efforts which the Board of Trade have made in the North-East to date? May I remind him that the Reserve Fleet is to disappear from Hartlepools by 1962, which will create a measure of unemployment in the months ahead?

Mr. Maudling: We will certainly keep a close eye on that situation.

Worsted Yarn (Export to Common Market Countries)

Mr. Worsley: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to maintain the export trade in

worsted yarn to the countries of the European Common Market, especially Germany.

Mr. Maudling: We are seeking a reduction in the Common Market tariff in the current negotiations in Geneva.

Mr. Worsley: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this matter is causing great concern in my constituency, which produces about a quarter of the exports to the Common Market, particularly to Germany? Does my right hon. Friend agree that we shall not have the opportunities to maintain this trade unless we are able to get into the Common Market? Will he pursue policies in that direction?

Mr. Maudling: The last part of the supplementary question is going a little wide. I agree on the importance of this item of trade and we are doing all that we can to protect it. I am hopeful of success.

Barton-on-Humber

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he is aware of the situation in Barton-on-Humber where many of the inhabitants, unable to find work locally, are obliged to go fifteen miles to shift work in the steel works at Scunthorpe; and what steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to encourage industry to come to towns and villages near Scunthorpe, such as Barton-on-Humber, where rail and sea transport are readily available.

Mr. Maudling: I am aware that some workers travel daily from Barton-on-Humber to Scunthorpe, but this is to be expected in modern conditions and I do not consider that I should be justified in encouraging further industrial development in Barton-on-Humber, in view of its present low rate of unemployment and of the overriding needs of the development districts.

Mr. Mallalieu: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that this low unemployment is caused by the fact that a great many, not just some, of the inhabitants of Barton-on-Humber have this appalling burden of going to Scunthorpe, fifteen miles, in all weathers and at all times of the day, because of shift work? The reason that there is low unemployment is that they have to


go to Scunthorpe. Is he satisfied with the position in Barton? Would it not be much better to try to induce some other industry to go there and at least to employ those workers who are too old to go to Scunthorpe and in any case do not want to go there?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that fifteen miles each way daily can be described as an appalling burden. My duty by Statute is to give proper preference to the requirements of those districts where unemployment is still substantial.

Tariffs

Mr. Holt: asked the President of the Board of Trade what action Her Majesty's Government intend to take on tariffs, following the announcement by the French Government that they will make a unilateral cut in their tariff rates of 5 per cent. to take effect from the 1st April, 1961.

Mr. Maudling: None, Sir.

Mr. Holt: Is not this a deplorable state of affairs when such a protectionist Government as the French Government are ahead of the British Government in a reduction of tariffs? Will the right hon. Gentleman do something about it?

Mr. Maudling: These reductions which the French Government are making are merely in anticipation of reductions which they will shortly have to make anyway under the Treaty of Rome. The British Government have persistently made it clear that we are anxious in the forthcoming G.A.T.T. negotiations to negotiate substantial tariff reductions, but these, we consider, should be reciprocal.

Mr. Holt: The hon. Member recently said that our own tariffs are too high and that British industry would do much better for less protection, and this is precisely why the French are making these cuts early. Why cannot the British Government make unilateral cuts in tariffs?

Mr. Maudling: Because I think that the right way to cut tariffs is by getting reciprocal reductions at the same time so that we can not only increase competition in this country but also increase opportunities.

Leipzig Fair

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet had any indication from the experience of British companies gathered at the Leipzig Fair of 1961 of the likelihood of reduced or increased representation of British companies at the Fair in 1962.

Mr. Maudling: I am informed that the experience of British participants at the recent Leipzig Fair will encourage most of them to show again next year, and that some exhibitors will probably require more space.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there are a number of firms, I am informed, which have been exhibiting for three or four years and which have been able to sell only just the products on the stand? They are getting a little bored with that and will not go on unless there is an opening up of trade between this country and East Germany.

Mr. Maudling: There has been a substantial increase in trade between this country and East Germany, and the recently announced trade agreement between the F.B.I. and its East German counterpart provides for quite a big increase again this year.

Mr. Lipton: Would it not help matters considerably if we did the sensible thing and recognised the East German Government?

Mr. Maudling: I do not think that it would have the slightest effect on our trade with them.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Income Tax (Alimony)

Commander Kerans: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will introduce a provision in the Finance Bill to ensure that married men paying alimony are not scheduled and taxed as single men.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): No, Sir. It would not be right to extend the allowance for a married man who maintains his wife out of taxed income to a


man paying alimony who is effectively relieved from tax on his alimony payments.

Universities (World Disarmament)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will consider the endowment by Her Majesty's Government at one of the universities of the United Kingdom of a research unit to study the military, economic and other problems of world disarmament.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir.

Mr. Thomson: Would the Minister reconsider this before rejecting the matter out of hand? Is he aware that there are a great many difficulties and complicated problems which it is impossible for a busy Government Department to tackle? Will he bear in mind the example set by the Home Secretary in encouraging research at universities on penal problems and remember that the Americans are doing this on a considerable scale? Are we always, under the present Government, to lag behind the idealism of the new American administration?

Sir E. Boyle: No request has yet been received from any university for the endowment or encouragement of a research unit of this kind.

Mr. E. L. Mallalieu: Cannot the Government take the initiative in this matter? Surely they are not going to sit back and allow not only the Russians to lead us in propaganda peace appeals but also now the Americans?

Sir E. Boyle: This goes to the heart of our whole system of dealing with the universities in this country. Where it is a matter of a research unit, we would always wait for a university to make a request. That is the whole basis of our system of dealing with the universities through the University Grants Committee. It would be quite a new departure in policy if the Government were to take the initiative in encouraging a research unit of this kind.

Mr. Thomson: Is the Minister saying that if we can persuade a university to take an interest in this matter, the Government will sympathetically consider such a request?

Sir E. Boyle: I am sure that both the universities themselves and the University Grants Committee will take note of the views expressed by hon. Members opposite.

Post-War Credits

Mr. Houghton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he intends to take steps to lower the ages for the repayment of post-war credits.

Sir E. Boyle: I regret that I cannot at present make any statement about lowering the age for repayment of post-war credits.

Mr. Houghton: May I ask the hon. Gentleman when he expects a statement to be made? Is his right hon. and learned Friend reserving the matter for the Budget statement?

Sir E. Boyle: I do not think that I can add to what I have said this morning.

Overseas Subsidiary Companies

Mr. Stevens: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what would be the cost to the Exchequer in a full year of extending the Overseas Trading Corporation provisions to overseas subsidiary companies.

Sir E. Boyle: The cost cannot be estimated precisely but would probably be several million pounds in a full year.

Mr. Stevens: Would my hon. Friend agree that in any case the cost of extending these provisions to overseas subsidiaries would be likely to be less than the original cost covering overseas branches only? In any event, would he not agree that the cost in tax concessions has been of great benefit to British industry and financial institutions?

Sir E. Boyle: I have no doubt that we shall have an opportunity of discussing all these matters at the appropriate time fairly soon. In the meantime, I am sure that my hon. Friend would not expect me to anticipate my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget statement and the Finance Bill.

South Bank Site

14. Mr. Jeger: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he discussed with the London County Council the future


of the South Bank site before making his decision not to proceed with the building of a National Theatre.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. But my right hon. and learned Friend discussed this matter with the Chairman of the L.C.C. on March 13th and further discussions between the Government and the L.C.C. will take place as occasion requires.

Mr. Jeger: Is not this a terrible example of the shabby way in which the Government have treated the London County Council? Is not the Minister aware that the L.C.C. has held this site for over ten years and, owing to the deplorable manner in which the Government have handled the question of a National Theatre, there is considerable doubt whether we shall ever see one, and that we shall have to rely on the forward-looking and imaginative boldness of the L.C.C. to provide it?

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot agree with what the hon. Gentleman said, nor, for that matter, would his right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), who said on 21st March:
I personally agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman's approach to this question and think that this may be the best way of establishing a real national theatre."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1961; Vol. 637, c. 212.]

Earned Income

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what would have been the earned income required in 1939 and 1945, respectively, to provide the equivalent purchasing power of an earned income today of £6,536 12s. 6d. net or £24,000 gross.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): Allowing for changes in taxation and in the internal purchasing value of the pound, the gross earned income equivalent in 1939 and 1945 to a net income after tax today of £6,536 12s. 6d. was £3,492 and £17,474 respectively, to the nearest pound.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: Do not these figures show that the taxation on management has become very high for a country which depends so much on its exports?

Mr. Barber: I think that the figures that I have given speak for themselves.

I must decline at this time to engage in any interchange with my hon. Friend on fiscal matters.

Public Service Pensions

Dr. King: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what increase in pension has been made by Her Majesty's Government to a public service pensioner, Whose pension was £500 in 1946; what is the real value of his present pension in terms of the value of money in 1946; and what information he has about comparative figures for British public service pensioners who worked for the Government of Sudan.

Sir E. Boyle: A United Kingdom civil servant retiring on 30th June, 1946, with a pension of £500 a year will have received since then pensions increase of £183; and the value of his present pension in terms of 1946 purchasing power is £396. As for the third part of the Question, I assume the hon. Member has in mind British pensioners of the Sudan Government: I am advised by my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal that the comparable figures are £103 and £350.

Dr. King: Do not the figures show that the time has come again for a revision of the inadequate pensions paid to veteran public service pensioners? Is the Financial Secretary aware that Britishers who served as civil servants in the Sudan are the only civil servants who have not had their pensions adjusted in any way to meet the rise in the cost of living? If the Sudan Government cannot accept their responsibilities, will the hon. Gentleman tell his right hon. and learned friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that we in this country ought to accept our own moral responsibility to these British citizens?

Sir E. Boyle: I cannot comment on the first part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. On the second part, I take note of what he has said and I shall pass it on. I think that it was accepted that the members of the Sudan Civil Service were not regarded as being in the service of the Crown, but were recruited by the Sudan Government which retains the responsibility for paying their pensions, including any pension increases to offset the effects of inflation, but I will certainly bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my hon. Friend also bear in mind that there is a strong feeling on this side of the House that something ought to be done on the question of Sudan civil servants' pensions?

Sir E. Boyle: I have, of course, noted the points made in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney), my hon. Friend the Member for Angus, North and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Hastings (Sir N. Cooper-Key). This is a difficult question, because the whole field of public service pensions is difficult anyway, particularly in this territory where we are dealing with people who are not technically British public service pensioners.

Public Service (Salaries)

Mr. Wingfield Digby: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what steps he proposes to take to reduce the disparity between financial rewards in the higher ranks of the public service and outside industry, particularly among technical civil servants and especially with regard to the benefits in kind which are available in outside industry but not in the public service.

Sir E. Boyle: None, Sir. The Standing Advisory Committee on the Pay of the Higher Civil Service reviewed the situation early in 1959 in the light of the principles recommended by the Royal Commission on the Civil Service. The Government accepted their recommendations and there is no reason to think that another review is called for now.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: If the present trend continues, is it not the case that we shall be in danger of losing from the public service the very best people, even taking into account their desire to serve the public and also such questions as honours?

Sir E. Boyle: This is, of course, an important point. On the other hand. I do not believe that this is a field in which any inquiry or commission would be particularly helpful. I think that here we are quite definitely in the range where it is for the Government themselves to take the right decisions in the light of all the facts before them.

Mr. Jay: May we take it that the Government, having decided to pay a very high salary to the Chairman of the Transport Commission, will now pay similar salaries to the heads of the other nationalised industries?

Sir E. Boyle: That goes rather beyond the Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Houghton: Is the Financial Secretary aware that the higher ranks of the Civil Service first received what were called Priestley increases and next what were called Coleraine increases? May we now expect them to receive Beeching increases?

Sir E. Boyle: I do not think that I will be drawn on that one. Anyone in my present office must have been aware that there was a period when the whole question of salaries in the Civil Service was pretty frequently on the move, to put it no higher than that.

Coins (Cost of Production)

Mr. Lipton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how much it costs to mint a penny and halfpenny coin, respectively.

Mr. Barber: It would not be in the public interest to disclose these figures.

Mr. Lipton: Is it correct to assume that it costs more than a halfpenny to manufacture a halfpenny and probably about a penny to make a penny? Is it not very strange and most suspicious that the Treasury is not willing to disclose how much it costs to make these coins?

Mr. Barber: No. The answer is a very simple one, namely, that the Mint's foreign competitors do not reveal their production costs, and I therefore do not think that it would be right to expect the Mint to reveal its production costs.

National Theatre

Mr. Jeger: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the dismay and disappointment caused by his decision about the National Theatre; and whether he will reconsider his decision.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. The Government's decision was bound to cause disappointment in some quarters; but I


believe there are many who have received it with favour.

Mr. Jeger: Will the hon. Gentleman give an instance of what person of any eminence in the artistic or theatrical world has received it with favour? Will he give an instance of any responsible newspaper which in its leading article has commended his right hon. and learned Friend for this decision? I ask him to recognise that there is general dismay over the whole country about this niggling and petty way of dealing with such a big question.

Sir E. Boyle: No. I think that the hon. Gentleman is exaggerating. I gave one instance of eminence a little while ago, namely, the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss). The hon. Gentleman asked me about the Press. I think that the Birmingham Post can be considered a paper of some eminence.

Dr. King: Will the Financial Secretary have another look at this? Does he not realise that Britain, which produced the world's greatest dramatist, is about the only civilised country in the world which has not a National Theatre?

Sir E. Boyle: The Government have given a great deal of thought to this and I should be hopelessly misleading the House if I gave any impression that the Government were likely to go back on the main lines of their decision. I remind the House that my right hon. and learned Friend gave a quite clear indication that he thought that his own policy would involve somewhere between an extra £300,000 a year and an extra £450,000 a year for the theatre. I think that most people who have read my right hon. and learned Friend's statement and his answers to questions feel that the theatre can take a great deal of comfort from it.

Mr. K. Robinson: If, as seems probable, in default of any action by the Government the London County Council proceeds to build a National Theatre, will the Financial Secretary pledge the Government to provide the L.C.C. with the £1 million which was promised by the House in 1949 for this specific purpose?

Sir E. Boyle: No. I think that I should be extremely unwise to give a pledge of

that kind in answer to the hon. Gentleman, whose supplementary question goes quite a long way beyond the Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Jeger: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the replies on this Question, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Exchange Control Act, 1947 (Section 22)

Mr. J. Howard: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many letters were opened within the last convenient twelve months under the authority of Section 22 of the Exchange Control Act, 1947; and what was the total amount of illegally remitted currency discovered by this examination.

Mr. Barber: In 1960 approximately 300,000 letters were opened and £50,000 of illegally remitted currency discovered.

Mr. Howard: Will my hon. Friend say whether any currency plots were unmasked by this examination, and also how much it cost the Treasury to perform this currency examination?

Mr. Barber: I cannot give my hon. Friend the cost of this operation, but I have made inquiries and I am told that the number of people involved is probably about four to six. The position is that, whilst we have certain currency restrictions and currency control continues to be necessary in order to prevent the unauthorised export of capital, we must do this. I assure my hon. Friend that the need for these measures is always kept under review.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the hon. Gentleman say in how many of the total number of letters opened no currency was found?

Mr. Barber: I cannot give that information. Only a very sketchy record is kept of the number of letters opened and examined. To do anything more than this would be a waste of time and would involve unnecessary public expenditure. I should like the House to consider this matter in perspective. I am told that about 350 million letters a year leave the country. Therefore, the number opened is less than one-tenth of 1 per cent. of outgoing mail.

Universities (Teaching Methods)

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Secretary of State to the Treasury why Medical teaching has been specifically excluded from the terms of reference of the committee set up under the chairmanship of Sir Edward Hale to inquire into teaching methods in the universities; and whether he consulted the Minister of Health before reaching this decision.

Sir E. Boyle: The Committee to which the hon. Member refers was appointed by the University Grants Committee after discussion with the universities. The precise terms of reference of a Committee of this kind are not a matter on which either I or my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health would expect to be consulted. I understand that teaching in medicine—and in dentistry and veterinary science—which raises problems different from those of other undergraduate teaching, is excluded.

Mr. Robinson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very strong case for an inquiry into medical teaching methods? Whilst it may not be his direct concern, will he, in conjunction with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, use his influence with the University Grants Committee to get the terms of reference changed in order to include medical teaching?

Sir E. Boyle: I will certainly take note of what the hon. Gentleman has said. As I expect he is aware, the present inquiry is essentially of a factual and analytic nature and is not aimed at making policy recommendations. I will certainly bear in mind the hon. Gentleman's points.

Oral Answers to Questions — HOME DEPARTMENT

Ingleby Committee (Recommendations)

Mr. Dance: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is yet in a position to announce which of the recommendations in the Ingleby Report the Government propose to accept and incorporate in legislation, other than those incorporated in the Criminal Justice Bill.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): We are considering the Committee's recommendations in the light of the comments which we have received from the organisations chiefly interested, but I am not yet in a position to indicate our conclusions.

Mr. Dance: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. I am quite certain that he is aware of the excellent work done by the N.S.P.C.C. Is he aware of the resentment which would be felt by the Society were there any curtailment of its power to initiate action against people who have been cruel to children, as I rather gather is envisaged in the Report?

Mr. Butler: I note what my hon. Friend says and will take it into consideration when making up my mind.

Miss Bacon: Apart from the question of the N.S.P.C.C. and the Ingleby Committee, can the right hon. Gentleman give us any indication as to when he is to introduce a new Children and Young Persons Bill, which has been promised us following the Criminal Justice Bill?

Mr. Butler: No decision has been taken about future legislation. The Home Office is certainly taking its share of fresh legislation and reform. This is one for the future, which is under consideration now.

Departmental Stores (Fire Precautions)

Mrs. Braddock: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give a direction to the Technical Sub-Committee of the Joint Fire Prevention Committee of the Central Fire Brigades' Advisory Councils for England and Wales and for Scotland that, when framing recommendations for guidance to fire authorities on fire safety precautions in large departmental stores following the Henderson fire in Liverpool, they should avail themselves of the assistance of technical officers of the Liverpool Corporation and the Liverpool Fire Authority who, as a result of practical experience gained at the Henderson fire, might be able to give advice to this Sub-Committee in framing a suitable code of precautions.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. David Renton): While it would not be appropriate for my right hon. Friend to tell the Sub-Committee to seek advice from any particular source, he is in no doubt that it will ensure that it has full information about the Henderson fire.

Mrs. Braddock: Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that up to the time I tabled this Question, although the Liverpool authority and the fire authority had requested the right to make a statement to the Sub-Committee, they had received no reply, only an acknowledgment? Is he aware that only two days ago there was another fire in one of the newly-built shops in the Liverpool area, which underlines the need for some additional information regarding building and fire precautions in premises and shops? In view of this, will he think again about giving the Sub-Committee directions to receive information and obtain advice from those who know about this subject?

Mr. Renton: No. It is for the Sub-Committee itself to decide what information it needs. The hon. Lady will remember that the chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee is Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Fire Services and that he examined the Henderson fire. He visited the site and reported. I have no doubt that he and other members of the Committee will take note of the points which the hon. Lady has made, but we must leave it to the Committee.

Wild Birds (Import)

Mr. Russell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that wild birds such as finches are being imported from India and kept in cages, whereas under the Protection of Birds Act, 1954, it is illegal to possess any such bird taken or killed in the United Kingdom; and if he will introduce legislation to prevent these imports.

The Minister of State, Home Department (Mr. Dennis Vosper): My right hon. Friend already has powers under Section 7 of the Act to prohibit the import of live wild birds. On present information he is not satisfied that there is a case for exercising these powers in the manner suggested.

Mr. Russell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although a number of these birds imported into this country are re-exported, some of them apparently stay, here? Will he look into it and watch the situation very carefully, particularly as regards birds which come here by air?

Mr. Vosper: Yes. I have pointed out that my right hon. Friend has the powers at the moment, but on the information at present available he has not thought fit to exercise them.

Judges' Rules (Review)

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has now considered the representations made to him with regard to the methods of obtaining and using confessions made in a police station; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Epsom (Mr. Rawlinson) on 16th March last.

Mr. Fletcher: Is the Home Secretary aware that that reply was regarded as rather unsatisfactory in certain quarters? Is he aware that it indicated that the matter is being considered by the judges but has been withdrawn from the purview of the Royal Commission on the Police? Does not the Home Secretary realise that there is considerable public concern about this. While it may be appropriate that judges should consider matters relating to the rules of evidence, on the other hand the whole question of the circumstances in which confessions are obtained in police stations is a matter relating to police administration, and, I should have thought, essentially a matter which the present Royal Commission on the Police should investigate? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a number of representations have been made? Will the right hon. Gentleman please explain why the Commission is not being allowed to make an investigation?

Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. Great trouble was taken before this decision was reached. I met the Chairman of the Royal Commission and the Lord Chief Justice and we came to the conclusion,


with the agreement of the Chairman of the Commission, that it was a matter more suitable for the judges to examine. The Chairman of the Royal Commission has agreed to make available for the purposes of this review any material that is relevant which comes or has come to the Commission. This will be made available to the judges appointed by the Lord Chief Justice to make a thorough review of this matter. I believe that this review has been rather better received than the hon. Gentleman has intimated, and I believe that it would be the most thorough way of doing it.

Mr. Gordon Walker: Can the right hon Gentleman assure us that it will be within the purview of one or other of the bodies to look at the practice of the police to detain men without making a charge against them, which would seem, on the face of it, to be in contravention of our ideas about habeas corpus? Is he aware that if this matter were to fall between the two stools, something would be lost which ought to be retained, and that the situation is causing concern?

Mr. Butler: I have not had notice of that question. This investigation will cover the question of the interrogation of persons. The judges have given me an assurance that they will look into the question of interrogation before a man is accused——

Mr. Gordon Walker: Before he is charged?

Mr. Butler: —yes, before he is charged. That is to be looked at, and so it means that this investigation is really more important than would appear at first sight.

Mr. Fletcher: We all agree that this inquiry is very important, but can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the result will be made public, in the same way as would the result of an inquiry by a Royal Commission; and that people who wish to give evidence and make representations to the judges will have the same facilities far doing so as they would have if the investigation were conducted by the Royal Commission?

Mr. Butler: I shall be glad to get in touch with the Lord Chief Justice on the point which the hon. Gentleman has raised relating to submissions, so that we can be sure that if they wish to be

made there is a quarter where they can be received. I will certainly do that and I think that is the main answer to the supplementary questions asked by the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Fletcher: The other question was whether the result will be made public.

Mr. Butler: I shall have to consult the Lord Chief Justice. This is a matter for the judges. The Rules are known today and, presumably, when any alterations are made, they will be made known.

Prisoners, Wandsworth (Attempted Break Out)

Mr. Fletcher: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement on the attempted break out of prisoners at Wandsworth Gaol on 19th March.

Mr. R. A. Butler: At about 10.50 a.m. an Sunday, 19th March, seven out of ten prisoners exercising together suddenly ran towards a temporary corrugated iron wall screening a new building in course of erection. Presumably they intended to force their way through the sheeting and get over the prison wall by climbing the builder's scaffolding. Prompt and determined action by the four supervising officers foiled this attempt and the prisoners were removed to the cells. One officer was bruised on the face and hand, but I am glad to say that he was able to return to duty yesterday.

Mr. Fletcher: In view of the fact that this was the second outbreak from Wandsworth within a few days, is the Home Secretary satisfied that there is nothing about the conditions at Wandsworth which requires any special investigation?

Mr. Butler: Naturally, I caused special investigations to be made on hearing this news. I think one must say that the prisons, and Wandsworth in particular, are overcrowded at present. But I am satisfied that on this occasion there wore four officers on duty with ten prisoners, which is a reasonable precaution, and that the officers dealt with the situation in a satisfactory way. But one must say that at present the prisons are overcrowded. I have caused special investigations to be made with the Prison Commissioners.

Mr. V. Yates: In view of his last remark about the overcrowding of prisons, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that three prisoners broke away from Birmingham yesterday where three men are sleeping in one cell in conditions worse than ever in history? Cannot he do something about that, because I am sure that it must contribute to the danger? Cannot something be done to alter the position and make conditions less overcrowded?

Mr. Butler: I am hopeful that the prison building programme, which involves no less than thirty-one establishments, and has been accelerated over the last three years, will eventually help to cope with the situation. At present we are at the peak of the trouble and the most unsatisfactory feature is the number of instances in which three people are sleeping in one cell. That cannot but be regarded with revulsion by the general population.

Miss Bacon: Apart from the building of more new prisons which is very necessary, can the right hon. Gentleman say when he will be in a position to make a statement about the intentions of the Government with regard to the report of the Streatfeild Committee, which would in effect mean that fewer people were serving such long periods on remand in prison?

Mr. Butler: We found the Report of the Streatfeild Committee very valuable and we should like to take action on it at an early date. But first we must finish the legislation which we have in hand, and then we can proceed with further reforms.

Immigration from Commonwealth Countries

Mr. N. Pannell: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will now state what steps are contemplated to control immigration from Commonwealth countries in view of the fact that the estimated net inward movement for the first two months of this year is over five times the figure for the corresponding period last year.

Mr. Renton: I have nothing at present to add to the statement I made in reply to the debate on 17th February.

Mr. Pannell: Is not it reasonable to suppose that the publicity given recently

to the possibility of controlling immigration has had the effect of stimulating the inflow, and that the longer action is delayed the worse the situation will become? May I ask my hon. and learned Friend to ask his right hon. Friend to treat this matter with a sense of urgency, as at the present rate we are facing the prospect of an influx of more than 100,000 of these immigrants this year?

Mr. Renton: Whether the debate had the effect which my hon. Friend suggests is a matter on which nobody can draw a firm conclusion. But my hon. Friend is right in saying that immigration is continuing at a very high rate. We are going ahead with our consideration of this matter. Meanwhile, my hon. Friend will have noticed that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is in the West Indies and having consultations with the West Indian Prime Ministers.

Mr. Dugdale: Will the Under Secretary ask his right hon. Friend to exercise his usual caution in this matter and not be stampeded by his hon. Friend? Does he realise—I am sure he does—that this is an exceedingly difficult question which cannot be settled in a day or two because there happen to be a few extra immigrants?

Mr. Renton: My right hon. Friend is never stampeded on any occasion.

Mr. Wingfield Digby: Is not there enough evidence in the world today of the difficulty of multi-racial societies to give us cause to pause before we go any further in creating a multi-racial society here?

Mr. Awbery: Can the Minister give the figures of emigration and immigration? Regarding the point raised by the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby), is he aware that when we send English people abroad we help to create a multi-racial state in the places to which they go, and so a difficulty arises there as well?

Mr. Renton: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will put down a Question.

R.A.F. Station, Pucklechurch (Prison Commission's Proposals)

Mr. Corfield: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is in a position to make a


statement with regard to the proposals of the Prison Commission to use part of the former Royal Air Force station at Pucklechurch; and, in particular, whether he will state when a final decision on this matter is likely to be announced

Mr. Vosper: The proposal to build a remand centre on this site is under discussion with the local authorities. My right hon. Friend cannot forecast the course of these discussions, but the need for remand centres is urgent and there will be no delay on his part.

Mr. Corfield: I accept the urgency of the matter. Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that inevitably there is a great deal of anxiety locally and that in particular there is anxiety that this R.A.F. station should be put to a good economic use?

Mr. Vosper: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will bear in mind what has been said by my hon. Friend when he considers the result of these discussions.

Miss Bacon: Will the right hon. Gentleman be careful not to take any steps which would postpone further the building of remand centres? Since the enactment of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, we have had as yet not one remand centre built in the whole of the country. Will he speed up rather than retard the building of them?

Mr. Vosper: We have been fortunate in the acquisition of sites in recent months. The hon. Lady will understand the importance of carrying the local residents with us when we acquire sites for this purpose.

Mr. Don Pan (Deportation)

Dr. King: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why the Chinese student, Mr. Don Pan, studying at the University of Southampton, was deported from Southampton on 11th March.

Mr. Renton: Mr. Pan was informed on 26th October last that he was expected to end his stay in the United Kingdom by 15th November, 1960. He did not do so, and as my right hon. Friend was satisfied that his departure was conducive to the public good he was deported.

Dr. King: Is it not a sorry tale, following the recent spy trial, that the great "fish" got away for a long time and a poor little "minnow" is interrupted in his academic studies at a university where everybody said he was a likeable and harmless young man engaged in research? Is the Minister aware that the faculty and the students at Southampton University are deeply concerned about this? Is he aware that British universities have been the guardians of intellectual freedom for a long time? Cannot he reconsider this question?

Mr. Renton: I have nothing to add to what I have said except to assure the hon. Gentleman that my right hon. Friend came to his decision after the most careful consideration, and also to say that there are thousands of foreign students in this country who are most welcome here.

Mr. J. Howard: Like the hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King), I have received a letter from the president of the Students Union on this question of Mr. Don Pan. Is my hon. and learned Friend aware of the disquiet in the university, and could he not consider giving the two Members concerned an opportunity of judging for themselves the validity of this decision?

Mr. Renton: I am certainly willing to receiving any representations from any hon. Member of this House on any matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — BASUTOLAND

Mr. Nyaka Tsulo

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will give an assurance that he will not agree to the extradition to the Union of South Africa from Basutoland of Nyaka Tsulo.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Bernard Braine): Any application under the Fugitive Offenders Act for the return of a person from Basutoland to the Union of South Africa is a matter for the courts.

Mr. Dugdale: While appreciating what the hon. Gentleman says, may I ask him whether he will agree that this


man is charged with a political offence, so that it is reasonable that he should not be extradited?

Mr. Braine: If anybody enters Basutoland and, on the ground that he has committed an offence, a warrant is issued for his arrest, that is a question for the courts. I am certain that we can rely on the courts of Basutoland to apply the ordinary British standards of justice, as they have always done.

Mr. Fletcher: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that now that South Africa has announced her intention of leaving the Commonwealth, totally different considerations arise? Will he make sure that what he said about the Fugitive Offenders Act still applies? In any case, if this is a political offence, is not the hon. Gentleman aware that some administrative action may also be required?

Mr. Braine: This is certainly one of the matters which we shall be considering as a result of the event to which the hon. Gentleman has referred.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAOS

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Prime Minister whether he will make a statement on his recent talks with President Kennedy on the situation in Laos.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman will, no doubt, have seen the communiqué which was issued after this meeting. The talks were, of course, confidential. But the House will have noted that there was full agreement that the proposals we have recently put to the Soviet Government would, if implemented, pave the way for Laos to become a truly neutral country and that President Kennedy and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister expressed the strong hope that the Soviet Union will make a positive and constructive reply to these proposals.

Mr. Henderson: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the value of this meeting rests on the emphasis which was laid by both heads of Government

on the need for a peaceful political settlement rather than for military intervention? Is he aware that many people will be glad that this lead was followed by the S.E.A.T.O. Conference on Friday in avoiding any decision in favour of recommending direct military intervention?

Mr. Butler: I would say that generally the answer is "Yes, Sir" to both the points raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It is naturally hoped that there will be a satisfactory outcome from these discussions and from the British initiative.

Mr. Healey: While endorsing the right hon. Gentleman's hope, may I ask whether it is true, as is suggested in The Times today, that President Kennedy's statement last Thursday in which he indicated the possibility of military intervention by S.E.A.T.O. into the affairs of Laos, was made before consultation, and without consultation with Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Butler: I do not think I can answer for President Kennedy in this House, and I should like notice of that question.

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at Bangkok on 27th March about the situation in Laos represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs at Bangkok on 27th March on the situation in Laos represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Foreign Secretary in that speech advocated a policy of armed intervention to put down a revolt in Laos against a reactionary dictatorship, armed, paid and imposed by the United States? Is he further aware that this policy would be contrary to the United Nations Charter which forbids intervention in the internal affairs of other countries or resort to force without the authorisation of the Security


Council? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the Government will in no circumstances transgress this obligation of the Charter to refer any alleged threat to international peace to the United Nations Security Council before taking armed action?

Mr. Butler: I did not read the interpretation which the hon. Gentleman reads into the speech of my noble Friend. It will be seen from the communiqué that the objective of Her Majesty's Government and of her allies in S.E.A.T.O. is to secure the peaceful settlement of the present situation while being prepared for emergencies. This entirely corresponds with my noble Friend's speech.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his own speech on the Adjournment the day before yesterday and his own assurance were regarded by us as far more moderate and less bellicose than the speech of the Foreign Secretary? Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that the impression given by the speech of the Foreign Secretary was that he was prepared in certain circumstances for armed intervention? I should like to know in what circumstances armed intervention in Laos could benefit the people of this country. Why does not the spokesman for the British Government adopt the same attitude as the Government of France and oppose any idea of military intervention at all?

Mr. Butler: As I made clear in my speech in the discussion on the Easter Adjournment, we are governed by our obligations under the Manila Treaty, and that is the extent of our obligation. We must be prepared for emergencies. As I made clear, and as my noble Friend made clear, we hope that there may be a political settlement of a satisfactory character.

Mr. Healey: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that nothing in the Manila Treaty would justify intervention by Her Majesty's Government or any other Government in a civil war inside Laos which is contrary to international law?

Mr. Butler: I must not interpret the legal terms of the Manila Treaty at Question Time, but in general I would agree that the expression "civil war" is rather outside the terms of the Treaty.

Mr. Russell: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that an armed dictatorship imposed by the United States, if indeed it does exist, is preferable to one imposed by the Soviet Union?

Oral Answers to Questions — APARTHEID

Mr. Emrys Hughes: asked the Prime Minister if he will publish as a White Paper or in the OFFICIAL REPORT the text of his statement regarding apartheid made on a public occasion in Trinidad on 28th March.

Mr. R. A. Butler: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. I note that the hon. Member is following closely the activities of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I have ascertained that my right hon. Friend would wish to be allowed to decline the honour which the hon. Member wishes to confer on him.

Mr. Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, of course, I follow the Prime Minister's speeches? It is our duty to do so. I do not want to embarrass either the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister by saying that this was a very good speech in which he said that a policy of apartheid was anti-Christian, but could the right hon. Gentleman assure us that his right hon. Friend who disseminates information throughout the world will see that this speech is widely distributed throughout Africa?

Mr. Butler: It was not a speech. It was in answer to a question at a Press conference. The Prime Minister used the words which have been attributed to him and I have checked with him that that is so. I do not think that the honour of circulating them in the OFFICIAL REPORT or making them into a White Paper is necessarily desirable, as they were answers at a Press conference.

Oral Answers to Questions — EDUCATION

Secondary Modern Schools (G.C.E. Examination)

Mr. Swingler asked the Minister of Education if he will now publish an analysis, based on the full returns made to his Department, of the 1960 General Certificate of Education results of secondary modern pupils, giving details of numbers of subjects taken: 

The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): As the Answer is in the form of a table of figures, I will publish it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Swingler: While thanking the Minister in anticipation of studying that table, may I ask him whether, in view of the higher pupil-teacher ratio in the secondary-modern schools compared with other schools, and in view of other adverse conditions, he would agree that the one-third of secondary modern schools which last year submitted pupils for the G.C.E. are to be congratulated on the endeavours made and the results achieved, and do not the results show that if genuinely comprehensive facilities were provided in these schools a tremendous advance in educational standards could be made?

Sir D. Eccles: The advance being made by secondary modern schools is very remarkable. The hon. Member will see from the table that the number of candidates taking the G.C.E. was 39 per cent. higher in 1960 than in 1959.

PUPILS AT SECONDARY MODERN AND ALL-AGE SCHOOLS WHO OFFERED SUBJECTS AT ORDINARY LEVEL IN THE GENERAL CERTIFICATE OF EDUCATION EXAMINATION, SUMMER, 1960


Number of Subjects offered
Number of Subjects passed
Total Number of pupils offering Subject


0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11



1
…
1,671
1,418
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
3,089


2
…
998
1,045
631
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
2,674


3
…
814
1,063
791
394
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
3,062


4
…
659
957
1,012
680
344
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
3,652


5
…
456
817
1,007
1,041
736
350
—
—
—
—
—
—
4,407


6
…
172
364
534
604
610
491
261
—
—
—
—
—
3,036


7
…
49
111
152
215
231
224
207
114
—
—
—
—
1,303


8
…
13
21
31
47
55
82
63
55
32
—
—
—
399


9
…
3
1
4
5
4
11
4
5
9
2
—
—
48


10
…
—
—
1
2
2
—
—
1
3
—
—
—
9


11
…
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
—
1
1


Total
…
4,835
5,797
4,163
2,988
1,982
1,158
535
175
44
2
—
1
21,680

University Students

Mr. Swingler: asked the Minister of Education if he will state, for the latest date for which figures are available, the number of university students per 1,000 of the school population for each county

Mr. Willey: Is the Minister aware that it is extremely difficult to obtain information about G.C.E. results, and that this is a matter of general interest and importance? Will he consult with the examining bodies to arrange that information is made more generally available so that one may gain a better picture of what is happening in the examination?

Sir D. Eccles: I am considering the adequacy of these and other statistics.

Dr. King: While these achievements are very important—I agree with all that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Mr. Swingler) said—does the Minister agree that it would be a bad thing if we judged the triumph which is undoubtedly taking place in secondary modern education merely by what it does for the able children at the top? It would be a bad thing, would it not, if we used only the yardstick of the G.C.E. to measure the remarkable achievements of secondary modern education for the ordinary child?

Sir D. Eccles: I accept entirely what the hon. Member has said.

Following is the table:

and county borough in England and Wales.

Sir D. Eccles: An analysis of all university students by area of residence is not available. I am sending the hon. Member details for each county and


county borough of the number of students holding State Scholarships and of the number of students holding local education authority awards tenable at universities. The numbers of award holders also are expressed as a proportion of the population in the relevant age groups.

Mr. Swingler: I am obliged to the Minister for supplying the information. Is he satisfied that equal treatment in this matter is being meted out by education authorities in general?

Sir D. Eccles: There have been, rightly, I think, some charges that the treatment has not been equal, but, with the coming into force of the new regulations for student awards, I think we shall have uniformity to a very large degree everywhere.

Modern Schools (Extended Courses)

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Education what progress has been made in the provision of extended courses in modern schools.

Sir D. Eccles: Good progress has been made. An account of it is being prepared for inclusion in my Department's Annual Report for 1960, which will be published during the summer.

Mr. Willey: I thank the Minister for that Reply and I look forward to the Report. How far is progress retarded by a lack of teaching facilities?

Sir D. Eccles: I could not answer that with accuracy. Of course, I should like to have more teachers and, particularly, some more graduate teachers in the secondary schools.

School-leaving Age

Mr. Willey: asked the Minister of Education whether he will make a statement on the raising of the school-leaving age.

Sir D. Eccles: In the debate on this subject a year ago, I made a full statement of the Government's policy, to which I have nothing to add.

Mr. Willey: Am I right in assuming that it is the intention of the Government to make a statement before the next General Election? Does the Minister

realise that it would be of considerable political importance to know when the statement is to be made?

Sir D. Eccles: If the hon. Gentleman will read what I said in the debate a year ago, he will find that I based everything on the supply of teachers. I said that I hoped that our measures for increasing the supply of teachers would enable us, before the end of this Parliament, to make a decision about the school-leaving age. I must first see whether or not the supply of teachers increases as we hope.

Mr. Willey: Is the Minister still hopeful? Does the hope he then expressed still obtain?

Sir D. Eccles: Yes, I am always hopeful.

Oral Answers to Questions — COLONIAL TERRITORIES

Colonial Development Corporation (Financial Review)

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is now in a position to make a statement on the financial review of the Colonial Development Corporation.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Hugh Fraser): We have been able to make progress recently on this matter, and, although I am not in a position to make a statement today, my right hon. Friend looks forward to doing so very shortly after the Recess.

Mr. Thomson: That is a very disappointing Answer. The Secretary of State undertook to make a statement before the Easter Recess. Does the hon. Gentleman realise that these delays make us more and more suspicious about the kind of pressure which is being exerted on his Department by the Treasury and that we shall, therefore, view his statement when it comes with very great care?

Mr. Fraser: I hope that the hon. Member will do that. My right hon. Friend said that he would try to make a statement before the Recess. This has proved impossible. We look forward to the comments of the hon. Member when the statement is made.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

Afforestation, Dartmoor National Park

Mr. Hayman: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he and the Forestry Commission were consulted about the intention of Economic Forestry, Limited to plant part of High House Moor, in the Dartmoor National Park, this autumn; and what action he took.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. W. M. F. Vane): Yes, Sir. The company is negotiating with the Forestry Commission for a dedication agreement in the ordinary way, and my right hon. Friend does not propose to intervene.

Mr. Hayman: Is the Minister aware that Economic Forestry, Limited, propose to plant some acres of High House Moor this autumn although the Dartmoor National Park Committee is utterly opposed to the proposal? This seeems to be a violation of the agreement reached last January. Will the Minister look into the matter?

Mr. Vane: I do not think that the acreage in question is really so very large. The hon. Member has referred to a voluntary agreement which was entered into recently between all the parties concerned. This was spoken about at length by my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government last night, and I do not think that I can add to what he then said.

Mr. Hayman: But will the hon. Gentleman take into account that this is a very exposed part of Dartmoor, and, therefore, it should be preserved as a part of the normal features of the landscape, not being violated by planting?

Mr. Vane: That, I think, is largely a matter of opinion.

Rabbit Clearance Societies

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food what proportion of the rabbit clearance societies is organised as co-operatives.

Mr. Vane: All but one of the societies are registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies' Acts. The arrangements for registration are co-ordinated in England by the Agricultural Central Co-operative Association and in Wales by the Welsh Agricultural Organisation Society.

Mr. de Freitas: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary take the opportunity now, which he did not take last week, to give full credit to the Agricultural Central Co-operative Association for the work it has done in this scheme?

Mr. Vane: I do so willingly. I think that the answer I have given to the hon. Gentleman does give full credit where that credit is due.

Mr. Gaitskell: In order to assist those who are not so expert, could the hon. Gentleman say what a rabbit clearance society is?

Mr. Vane: It is an organisation of interested parties, sponsored by my right hon. Friend, to ensure that the small population of rabbits in this country does not increase again so as to become a serious menace to agriculture.

Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food approximately how much foot-and-mouth disease has cost the taxpayer over the last twelve months.

Mr. Vane: About £2,650,000 has been paid as compensation for animals slaughtered during the past twelve months because of foot-and-mouth disease. Miscellaneous expenses have amounted to £215,000. Staff and administrative costs cannot be exactly calculated, but they are probably around £400,000.

Mr. de Freitas: In view of the enormous cost to the country of this disease, can the hon. Gentleman assure us that no research into the prevention and cure of it is held up in any way by shortage of money?

Mr. Vane: I can give that assurance. A great deal of research is going on in this country. The expenditure on research tends to rise. Our research institutions are looked upon by the whole world as the finest of their kind. In order that the matter should be kept in


its right proportion, I should say that, although the cost of compensation this year has been very high, the average over the last few years has been nearer £800,000.

Oral Answers to Questions — LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Civil Defence (Evacuation Plans)

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what are Her Majesty's Government's present plans for the evacuation of the civil population from the cities of the United Kingdom in the case of an attack by megaton bombs; and what total of population they consider could be evacuated.

The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Mr. Henry Brooke): In the light of the latest appreciation of the strategic situation, I am carrying out a comprehensive review of evacuation problems, including the one referred to in the second part of the Question. I hope to be able to take further steps before long.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Does the Minister hope that it will be possible to evacuate 12 million people, as we were recently told, and that in any case it will be possible to evacuate enough people to save 45 million lives, as reporters have recently said?

Mr. Brooke: I am not responsible for what reporters say. I answered the first part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question in my reply to his original Question. The numbers involved are one of the matters which we are further examining.

Mr. Noel-Baker: I shall put down a Question to the Minister in the early future.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: How far does the Minister co-operate in civil defence with the Secretary of State for Scotland? Is he aware that the hon. Member for Bute and North Ayrshire (Sir F. Maclean) recently stated in the House that if one megaton bomb exploded over Glasgow everything within a radius of 100 miles would be destroyed? In that case, what relevance has this whole business of civil defence to the future of the civil population? Is it not a fact that all the civil

defence busines is completely irrelevant to the new situation which has come as a result of the hydrogen bomb?

Mr. Brooke: I am a wiser man than to express any views about Scottish affairs when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland is in charge of them. I assure the hon. Member that there is the closest liaison between all members of the Government who are in any way concerned with civil defence.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, in reply to a Question from me in November, 1957, assured me that discussions were going on with the local authorities about a plan of evacuation and that he hoped shortly to report to the House on the result of those investigations and discussions? Without seeming unduly precipitate, may I ask whether it is not time that the Government had advanced beyond the stage of reviewing and surveying, and either came to the House and produced a plan or admitted what is the truth, namely, that they have no plan and that there is no possibility of carrying out their civil defence and evacuation policy?

Mr. Brooke: I cannot accept the last words of the hon. Gentleman. But since 1957 there have been far-reaching changes in the appraisal of the strategic situation, and an evacuation plan which was related to a strategic situation now out of date would clearly be worse than useless.

BASUTOLAND (DISTURBANCES, MASERU)

The following Question stood on the Order Paper:

Mr. MARQUAND: To ask the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, whether he is now able to make a further statement about the recent strike and disturbances in Maseru. Basutoland.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Bernard Braine): With permission, I will reply to Question No. 35.
Further information has been received about proceedings in Maseru up to 28th March as follows:
On 16th March and subsequent days, in consequence of the threats to public order, to which I referred in my statement on the 20th March, the police detained a number of persons for such offences as violence or intimidation or acts likely to cause breaches of the peace.
As a result, 26 persons were charged. Of these 1 has been convicted of intimidation, 18 of offences against public order, 6 have been acquitted and 1 is remanded in custody awaiting trial.
In the course of the investigations, the police found a number of other persons whom they had reason to suspect of other offences unconnected with the disturbances. These offences included being in illegal possession of narcotics, vagrancy and non-payment of taxes.

Mr. Marquand: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us whether any of the persons arrested in this way were refugees from South Africa? If so, can he give an assurance to the House that, whatever offence they may or may not have committed, there is no question of returning them to South Africa?

Mr. Braine: Yes, Sir. Twelve persons who claimed to be political refugees were detained originally. Of these, three were released at once when it was found that they had already completed their application forms. The other nine subsequently completed application forms and were released. All twelve applications, plus a further two from persons unconnected with these occurrences, were due to be considered by the Maseru District Board yesterday.

LAOS

The following Questions stood on the Order Paper:

Mr. A. HENDERSON: To ask the Lord Privy Seal whether he will make a further statement on the situation in Laos.

Mr. HEALEY: To ask the Lord Privy Seal if he will make a statement on the negotiations for a settlement in Laos.

The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Edward Heath): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I will now answer Questions Nos. 64 and 65.
I undertook last Monday to inform the House before it rose for the Recess of the latest position on Laos, and I will now make a short statement.
The general military situation remains unchanged and there have been no re-reports of renewed fighting in the past few days.
No reply has yet been received to the proposals which we put to the Soviet Government on 23rd March.
Hon. Members will have seen the text of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation Resolution on Laos and the final communiqué of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation Ministerial meeting. I think that the House will agree that, whilst emphasising the determination of the South-East Asia Treaty Organisation powers to safeguard the independence and neutrality of Laos, these statements reflect their desire for a peaceful solution of the Laotian problem.

Mr. Henderson: The communiqué to which the right hon. Gentleman has just referred stated that the rebel forces in Laos were continuing to be supplied and assisted by Communist Powers. Does that mean that the Russian airlift is still going on and that there is evidence that further foreign military personnel are being sent into Laos?

Mr. Heath: The assistance continues in that the Vietminh, whom I mentioned to the House the other day, are still supporting the Pathet Lao in large numbers in specialist occupations. We have had no information that the airlift has come to an end.

Mr. Healey: I assure the Lord Privy Seal that we on this side of the House very much welcome the fact that the tone of the S.E.A.T.O. communiqué is so much more moderate than the rather strident bluster in the Foreign Secretary's speech at Bangkok.
First, I notice that in the communiqué there is reference to the possibility that "members" of the Treaty Organisation may take action in certain circumstances. Does this imply that certain members of the Treaty Organisation indicated that they would not militarily intervene in those circumstances? In that case, is it possible for any Western intervention to take place under the auspices of S.E.A.T.O.?
Secondly, I note with great pleasure the right hon. Gentleman's remarks that the fighting appears to have stopped in Laos. In that case, is not the Western pre-condition for an international conference already met and is it necessary for any further formal steps to be taken to announce a cease-fire.

Mr. Heath: I do not accept the remarks of the hon. Gentleman about my noble Friend's speech. Similar remarks were rejected by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House earlier this morning.
The statement in the communiqué about members refers to all members of S.E.A.T.O. and is carrying out their obligations under Article IV of the Treaty of Manila. With regard to the cease-fire, it has been one of the features of the fighting in Laos that it comes and goes, so to speak, and that it is, as I said to the House, rather sporadic. The proposal is quite clear—that there should be an appeal by the co-chairmen for a cease-fire, and then it can be verified by the Control Commission.

Mr. Healey: May I press the right hon. Gentleman on the first point? The point has been noted by nearly all diplomatic correspondents this morning that the word "members" rather than the phrase "the members" is used in the passage in the communiqué to which I referred. This has clearly been taken to imply that, in the circumstances referred to, certain members of S.E.A.T.O. would not participate in the action envisaged. I should like the right hon. Gentleman to make quite clear to the House whether this interpretation, which is unanimous among the diplomatic correspondents, is incorrect.
On the second point, I remember the Lord Privy Seal telling the House a few days ago that Her Majesty's Government, at any rate, did not propose to be fussy about timing concerning the international conference. Can he assure the House that, if the Soviet Union makes clear its readiness to have an international conference along the lines proposed in the British Government's note of last Thursday, and if fighting is no longer taking place inside Laos, the conference will be called at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Heath: Concerning the reference in the communiqué, our understanding

is that there is an obligation on all members of S.E.A.T.O. to take action together under Article IV of the Treaty.
With regard to timing, what I said to the House was that the order of the proposals enabled action to be taken very quickly and that, as soon as the Soviet co-chairman accepts that there can be an appeal for a cease-fire and the Commission can go to Laos to confirm that it has been carried out, the conference can meet. All those things can happen very quickly.

Mr. Mendelson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, although he has told the House several times that timing need not be a serious difficulty, Prince Souvanna Phouma is reported as having said in Paris yesterday that he regards timing as very important and a major weakness in the proposals submitted by Her Majesty's Government? Cannot he give us an assurance that, in order to get out of that difficulty, the British Government will support a policy which will allow the conference and the Control Commission to start work at one and the same time, because an effective ceasefire has been established? Would it not be sensible to move in that direction so that timing will not prevent a successful conclusion to these negotiations?

Mr. Heath: I repeat that timing need not interfere in the least. If there is a de facto cease-fire, as soon as the Soviet co-chairman replies to our proposals with a joint proposal that there should be a cease-fire, the Control Commission can go immediately. Mr. Nehru has already indicated that he is prepared for the Indian chairman to convene the Commission at very short notice. Then the conference can take place. It is bound to take a little while for members of a considerable number of nations—probably up to fourteen—to assemble together for a conference. As I say, this point need cause no difficulty at all.

Mr. Gaitskell: May I press the right hon. Gentleman just a little further? He said, "Then, the conference can take place". Is it not likely that the Control Commission would take a considerable time to cover a country like Laos and to investigate whether fighting of any kind was going on? It is not a clear black and white situation; it is hazy and confused. Therefore, would it not


be much wiser, particularly if the Soviet Government desire this, to summon the conference immediately the Soviet Union has accepted the proposals of Her Majesty's Government?

Mr. Heath: Concerning the time that the Control Commission would take, I have stated that it could go to Laos quickly. In view of the modern means of air communication by small aircraft in Laos it could also form a judgment fairly speedily. It is, however, necessary to have the appeal for a cease-fire and a judgment that the cease-fire is being put into effect before the conference actually meets.

VISAS (JAPANESE CITIZENS)

Mr. Swingler: (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department why he has refused visas to five Japanese whose names have been notified to him by the hon. Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, who have been invited to come to Britain by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament on the occasion of the Aldermaston marching at the coming weekend, and if he will reconsider his decision.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): I do not consider that it would be in the public interest to give my consent in this case.

Mr. Swingler: Is this not a foolish and prejudiced decision? Should we not welcome to these shores distinguished citizens—and these are distinguished citizens—from the only country which has suffered the agony of atomic bombing? Is it not shameful that these Japanese citizens, who are waiting in West Germany for the grant of permission to enter the United Kingdom for the coming weekend, should be sent back right across the world because the Home Secretary has locked the door against them?

Mr. Butler: Large numbers of foreigners are expected to arrive and join in this event, and no objection is

made to their admittance to this country subject to the normal requirement of individual acceptability. Certain powers have been conferred upon me and on occasion they have been exercised. I have decided that I have to exercise them in this case.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Home Secretary aware that a considerable detachment of people from Scotland are coming to the Aldermaston march, including some of my constituents, whom I have the honour to lead on the march? Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that he is not trying to prejudice public opinion against the march? Why should he not allow the Japanese to come in if thousands of other people are coming?

Mr. Butler: I have no powers or desire to stop the hon. Member coming to take part in the march if he so wishes.

Mr. Zilliacus: In view of the fact that feeling in Japan is strong and nationwide on this issue of banning and getting rid of atomic weapons, will not the Home Secretary take a broad view in regard to these five Japanese? It is too late to replace them by other Japanese and they cannot do very much damage to law, order, security and happiness in this country by taking part in the march. Will not he consider the repercussions in Japan of refusing them admission?

Mr. Butler: I certainly do not wish to prejudice the position in Japan or the views of Japan upon nuclear weapons or anything else. I simply have to decide this matter in relation to the acceptability a these individuals.

Mr. Swingler: Although I am powerless to influence this decision now, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter at a future opportunity on the Adjournment.

ADJOURNMENT

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Redmayne.]

SCOTLAND (NON-GRADUATE TEACHERS)

12.14 p.m.

Mr. William Hannan: I should like to begin introducing this topic of the dilution of the teaching profession in Scotland by expressing to you, Mr. Speaker, our appreciation of the opportunity to develop this theme at some length, although it is now somewhat attenuated as a result of the questions which have gone before, about which, however, I make no complaint.
Those who have read the Scottish Press recently are left in no doubt that the Secretary of State for Scotland is faced with a first-class problem and that a crisis is looming in the schools. This is nothing new. It has been pending for a long time—indeed, for some years—as I shall try to show. We all regret the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison), who is indisposed, who would have been very pleased to be here and who raised this subject in the debate on the Queen's Speech as far back as November of last year.
We cannot ignore the uprising of temper among the teachers, both men and women, who normally are looked upon as being genteel and quiet, but who are anxious about the quality of education in Scotland. I want to make it clear for myself that I am interested in the conditions of pay and service and the qualifications of teachers only in so far as they are a vital part of the system of education. It is the quality of education about which I am concerned, although I agree at once that to have a satisfied staff would be a great contribution to that end. Nor should any of us be under any doubt that even if these immediate problems were to be solved, that would allay the troubles which are current in educational circles. There would still be fundamental grievances such as pensions for dependants, the starting salary and the long period before full salary is attained.
The background to the problem lies in the following facts. In Scotland, there are 2,000 uncertificated teachers. The teaching profession resents the dilution of the profession to that extent. In Glasgow, there are 56 classes on part-

time instruction. There are 23 further classes with a measure of part-time instruction. These classes cover 3,000 children. In five junior secondary schools, there are 1,370 pupils on part-time instruction. Glasgow requires 1,200 qualified teachers. There are 853 teachers over 65 years of age who are still employed throughout Scotland. We have half-day teachers. Children in some classes have a different teacher every other month. These conditions have piled up to such an extent that apart from the salary question, teachers are extremely concerned about the condition of education and the public and parents are lending their support.
To try to meet the problem, the Secretary of State and the Department have, over a number of years, adopted a series of stopgaps and expediencies instead of getting down to the fundamental problem and dealing with it and giving to education the priority which some of us consider that it deserves. We had, first, the training regulations which lowered the standards of entry for women to the teaching colleges some years ago when the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Henderson-Stewart) was Joint Under-Secretary of State. We had a form of dilution when third-class honours graduates were allowed to teach certain subjects in secondary schools. Retired teachers have been pressed to return to service for an annual emolument of about £100. There has been a recent appeal to married women to return to teaching. How can mutual understanding be established between teachers and children in circumstances like these? It is because there has been a lack of continuity in many cases of teaching that there is a lack of confidence in the children, and particularly at the important stage of the 12-plus examination.
I pass over the important point of the wastage of pupils who leave school at the age of 15. Those who enter a senior secondary school have the intention, first, of staying for the five years, but it is overall the practice that two-thirds of these children leave before completing the full course. It is from that potential that we could have had in the past a greater supply of teachers had some of the suggestions which we and the teachers have made been adopted.
Not only that, but there are no fewer than half a dozen Reports which the


Secretary of State has had supplied to him since 1951. First, there was the Departmental Report on the Supply of Teachers, in 1951, and there was a second one in 1953 which reiterated that information and which pointed out that the number taking the school leaving certificate at that time should be increased, but that that would require more teachers. There was another in 1957, but the third Report given to him was the Appleton Report, in 1955, on the Supply of Teachers of Mathematics and Science in Scotland. There was, in 1957, the interim Report of the Knox Committee and there was its final Report in 1959. The existence of these Reports is the answer to those who are now saying that we need a Royal Commission. The answer is that the information is all there. What is needed and what has been lacking is the will to act upon some of the suggestions and recommendations which have been made.
The Knox Committee made recommendations, but that Committee expressly stated that it was against—and it recommended against—this proposal to introduce a new category of teachers, the non-graduate male. This is one of the questions which have been circulated, I understand, by the Secretary of State for consideration. By teachers training at colleges, and by all those interested in education, that proposal is looked upon as an attempt to depreciate the standards of teachers and is looked upon, too, as an attack upon their profession.
With the Knox Committee's Report, there was a minority Report, and one of the things which some of us are anxious to know is whether the minority Report, made by the hon. Lady the Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) is influencing the Secretary of State in circulating this question at all. However, I make no further comment on that, because I have not given the hon. Lady notice that I would refer to her. Of course, it must not be thought that I am making a personal attack upon her. She is free to make that proposal. However, so far as we know, this is the only source from which this proposal has come, and it is deprecated. I mean that the quality of the suggestion is deprecated.
It would be a fair resumé of the reasons which the Department will give for even considering this proposal to say that in the last thirty years post-primary pupils have increased in number by, I think, about 60 per cent., and that due to the raising of the school-leaving age, more pupils are staying on to complete the five years' course. It is true that there are more staying on, but the answer to that is that far more would stay on if we had more teachers, and that is no argument for deprecating teachers' standards. Further, it may be said that the new certificate to be introduced next year will mean that still more young people will stay on after 15, and because of the developments in further education and the rest, more men will be attracted to the senior secondary schools and so deplete the number of male teachers in the primary schools in which it is desirable that a number should still remain. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) will, no doubt, attempt to deal with these points effectively. There are only one or two on which I want to make comment.
To go back to the introduction of the non-graduate teacher means that we go back to 1924. Prior to that time, it is true, non-graduates were entering into Scottish education, and I must say that some of them were amongst the best teachers I, personally, had. But they were entering then for different reasons. In those days there were economic reasons and economic hardship which prevented capable men from taking degrees, and the change which was made was hailed as a great advance for Scottish education, but surely the Secretary of State will not argue that we should go back thirty-six years when Scottish education is looked upon as being one of the most advanced in the world?
That question has been posed—and it is the straw which has broken the camel's back, and is the latest part of the background of dissatisfaction—whether, to maintain a desirable proportion of men, these regulations should be introduced. In the absence of information as to how the practical difficulties are to be overcome I think that the public generally and teachers in particular are quite right in their conclusion that the intention of the suggestion is


to lower the qualifications for entry and the standards of the teaching profession and of education as a whole. That I deplore. Surely this is a challenge we have to meet. We should not be going back to the old days.
I am surprised that the Secretary of State does not claim great credit for what has been happening and the progress which has been made in the recruitment of graduate teachers over the last few years. It has gone up each year from 1956 to 1960, the figures for those years being respectively 670, 685, 802, 894 and 915. I should have thought that that was most encouraging. Indeed, the Knox Committee itself said that if we had 930 graduates entering the profession annually till 1967 a satisfactory staffing situation could be reached then, and that thereafter a replacement of 800 a year would be necessary. There is, too, the planned development of the universities, and if the Secretary of State has any confidence at all in the progress and success which have been achieved in the development of the universities, I cannot understand why such a question has been circulated should be circulated at all.
The mere circulation of the question seems to suggest to many people that those who thought it up do not fully comprehend the nature of the real problem. There is no justification on the ground of shortage of teachers for introducing the non-graduate men. If this is persisted in, it will devalue the graduate, and that will mean that, as the number of graduates declines, the number of non-graduates will increase. We may be successful in getting numbers, but the quality will, of course, decline.
Here is a thing which the Secretary of State will have to face. I have here an advertisement from the Schoolmaster, in which the Royal Air Force invites applications from teachers for a period of sixteen years, which period of service leads to a pension of at least £455 a year and a minimum tax-free gratuity of £1,365. Thereafter, they can go back into teaching in our schools. On the other hand, a teacher who leaves the profession to go to any other job is not allowed to continue teaching in the schools with pay and pension. There are counter-attractions, such as the R.A.F. offers. I admit the difficulty the Secretary of State has to face. I want to be perfectly fair.
What is the situation? The Secretary of State is faced with the threat of a strike on 8th May unless he gives an assurance that the suggestions for the dilution of the profession are abandoned and that an increase of salaries acceptable to the profession has been negotiated by that time. Let none of us underestimate the militant spirit of the teachers or their detestation of this proposal. I want to offer the Secretary of State a means of overcoming the dilemma and to suggest a solution to this problem. I hesitate to use the phrase "a way out", but I earnestly believe that there is a solution. I am not authorised to advance this by any organisation. Indeed, I may lay myself open to abuse from certain quarters. The Secretary of State does not want a strike, parents do not want a strike, and the public do not want one. The only people who want a strike are the children, but for quite other reasons.
The first thing that the Secretary of State must do is to disabuse his mind of such terms as have appeared in leading articles in the Press about the Government eating humble pie and about loss of face and loss of dignity. How often are international problems decided by the likes and dislikes of people in high places! If the right hon. Gentleman becomes consumed with these considerations primarily and the original merits or demerits become blurred it could lead to a prolongation of the situation. The Secretary of State said a week ago that the negotiations would not be hastened by outside pressure, and, understandably, he wants to give the impression that he will not be influenced by strike talk.
I think that most reasonable people, including both men and women teachers, would accept that claims for salary increases should go through the normal statutory procedure. It is to the first proposal that I want to devote my attention and to suggest that the Government's defence is weak. This proposal has been in circulation for some time. It has been considered by the local' authorities and training authorities and the replies are now in the hands of the Secretary of State. Has the right hon. Gentleman received them all? Has he not sufficient evidence in his hands now not only as a result of these replies, but also from the tone of the meeting which was held the other day to warrant his


making an early statement, unofficially or officially, that this matter has been withdrawn and that he does not want any further consideration given to it? I believe that if he made such a statement there would be a relaxation of tension and of the pressure for a decision on increases in salary on 1st May.
I am sustained in that belief by comments in leading articles in the Scotsman and the Glasgow Herald. The latter newspaper says that:
The Scottish Education Committee must share the blame for the trouble which has followed in the wake of their suggestion (or proposal) for dilution and must be held wholly responsible for the teachers' violent reaction to the unconvincing comparison of teaching and Civil Service salaries.
The Scotsman said:
It would be folly to attempt such a change without the co-operation, not to speak of in face of the active opposition of teachers.
I ask the Secretary of State to consider this matter extremely seriously. There is no loss of face or dignity involved. It is not proposals that would be withdrawn. It is only a question suggested for negotiation. Once regulations are made or introduced into the House they cannot be withdrawn. It is true that draft regulations could be introduced and they might offer scope for discussion, but even they would add to the suspicion that what was contained in the draft was what the Department finally wanted.
It is said that we are living in an affluent society, but I believe that society should have its priorities right and that education must not suffer the same debasement that has visited some of our social services recently. Apparently we can find time in the House to debate a Betting and Gaming Bill and a Street Offences Bill, both of which are now Acts of Parliament, and a Licensing Bill, but on a subject of this kind we do not seem to have the same sense of priority.
Our young people, ill-prepared for the challenge, leave school to enter a society which arouses their meretricious and acquisitive instincts, titivated and encouraged by cheap books, cheap amusements and juke box tycoons. The people best fitted to help society in this matter are qualified teachers. I hope that at an early date the Secretary of

State will make a statement which will allay the ire that has been aroused and encourage children to grow up in a Scottish educational system of which we can continue to be proud.

12.35 p.m.

Sir Myer Galpern: I find myself forced to preface my remarks with the strongest possible condemnation of the Secretary of State's action in refusing to provide a copy of the memorandum which we are discussing today. I made several attempts to obtain this document, knowing full well that probably one of the answers to the debate would be that this is not a proposal for dilution, but merely a questionnaire to ascertain the views of various bodies who are in a position to give authentic and well-informed opinion.
Nevertheless, I believe that hon. Members ought to be able to read this memorandum and should not be told, as we have been told, that it was a confidential document—so "confidential" that every newspaper in the country that cared to comment on it was able to do so and teachers have already held several meetings on the basis of what is contained in it. We who are called upon to debate a question based on this memorandum are in complete ignorance of the contents of the document.
It may well have been that had we seen the document we should have been able to accept the Secretary of State's assurance that he had no serious intention and that it was purely exploratory on the subject of dilution. But the Secretary of State seems to regard the document as so essential to the defence of the country that it might be a betrayal of the Official Secrets Act if an hon. Member were able to peruse it before entering the debate. I hope, therefore, that in future a document which has become universal property, but which, unfortunately, in this case I have not been able to obtain, will be made accessible to hon. Members.
The Education (Scotland) Act, 1945 was a blueprint for the development of education for a number of years. It was an excellent Act if only we had been able to implement its admirable proposals. But we have not been able to erect the beautiful edifice that we saw in that Act because the fundamental prerequisite to any development and


extension of our educational system is our ability to attract larger numbers of first-class men and women into the teaching profession.
My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has referred to the innumerable committees and working parties which have been engaged on this problem for a great number of years. In 1945, the Advisory Council on Education stressed the need for urgent revision of teachers' salary scales and said:
We make this recommendation with the object of obtaining a permanent improvement in the supply of teachers both in quantity and in quality.
The Council was forced to make that recommendation because as recently as 1945 one county authority in Scotland paid a male graduate teacher with teacher-training college qualification a commencing salary of £200 per annum, or less than £4 a week, which was 8s. a week less than the salary paid to a young man on entry into the police force.
When I asked the Secretary of State, on Tuesday, whether he could see his way to appoint a committee of inquiry into the state of Scottish education, he sheltered behind the fact that innumerable committees had already reported to him and that this would mean a duplication of their work. But what serious attention has the right hon. Gentleman paid to the reports of those committees? Here we have a responsible and, indeed, exceptional body, the Knox Committee, of which I was a member, and which deliberated for eighteen months and made a recommendation on this very subject of whether to introduce non-graduate males into the teaching profession to serve in primary schools. The Knox Committee recommended that there should be no departure from the requirement that men teachers of general subjects must normally hold a university degree. There was a minority Report, but the person signing it was prepared to limit the introduction of non-graduate males for a short period until the shortage of teachers had ended.
Why does the Secretary of State see fit, at this juncture, to issue a questionnaire when all the facts and all the evidence clearly show that the number of graduates being attracted to the profession is steadily rising? There is no doubt that the new bursary proposals

announced yesterday—the Glasgow Herald and the Scotsman have condemned them because of their inadequacy—are a slight improvement on existing financial awards to students entering universities and other bodies of central and higher education. That in itself is bound to lead to an increase in the number of students who will be available for graduation. With the increasing number remaining at school and the increasing number proceeding to universities, we should be able to obtain the number that we think we ought to have—1,800 graduates per year ready to come into the profession.
In 1958, 53·7 per cent. of the total number of graduates in arts and pure science at the universities came into the teaching profession. Our objective should be to raise the proportion to 55 per cent. If we can achieve that, we shall not have to consider dilution of the profession in the primary schools.
We read advertisements in the national newspapers, as I did yesterday, showing that industry and commerce are trying to attract more and more graduates. I have in my hand an advertisement seeking two graduate trainees for production. Personnel officers in the larger establishments are required to have university degrees. Yet the Government are toying with the idea of diluting the teaching profession, the very people who are in the forefront of providing that pool of educated manpower.
There is no doubt that had the profession's salary scales been put on a proper basis ten years ago—this matter has been smouldering for years and has now burst into fire—there would have been no question of considering dilution because we should have attracted an adequate number of graduates to the profession. The more we talk about dilution of the profession the less likely we are to attract more graduates, because graduates want to feel that the profession is comparable with other professions and that there is recognition of its worth-whileness. They do not like to feel that it is necessary to bring in people who have not the requisite qualifications.
Take the dental profession. There is an acute shortage of dentists, particularly in the school dental service. Twenty or thirty years ago there used to be dentists who had no proper qualifications,


but there is no talk today about dilution of the dental profession by the introduction of unqualified people with makeshift training to carry out the essential work done by the overburdened profession. Why should we do it in the teaching profession?
There is no doubt whatever that there will be a strike on our hands on 8th May. The Glasgow Education Committee yesterday set up a committee to deal with the situation which will result. If it should happen, all the blame can rightly and justly be laid at the door of the Secretary of State. I support the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill that the Secretary of State can yet solve this problem and stave off any action. This is not precipitate action; it is something that has been smouldering for fourteen or fifteen years. The teachers have been very patient. The Secretary of State should announce that whatever was contained in the circular Which we have been denied the opportunity of seeing has now been withdrawn and that he will not consider dilution of the profession. Indeed, there is no need for it; we need more male graduates in the primary schools.
I conclude with a quotation from the leading article in the Glasgow Herald on 28th March:
The Government may once have thought that 'dilution' was practicable; they cannot think so now.

12.46 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: Almost two years ago I stood in this very place pleading with the Minister of State for Scotland to encourage the Secretary of State to give closer attention to the problems of teaching and the discontents affecting Scottish teachers. On that occasion the two topics disturbing the teachers were salaries and shortage of staff, with its corollaries of under-taught classes and overfull classes. Since then, another problem has developed. It is worth while noting that the problem of dilution has developed only within the last two years.
The Secretary of State has tried to create the feeling that this is a situation he is only exploring. I quote what I said on the previous occasion:
I trust that the suggestion in the current Report of the Advisory Council on Education

of a reduction in the qualifications of teachers entering Scottish schools is not one of the methods proposed by the Government to overcome the staffing shortage."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 1478.]
Those were my remarks two years ago when very little was being said about this suggested remedy.
There is not the slightest doubt that in sending out the memorandum which he has kept secret from us the Secretary of State had had in mind the suggestion in the Report from the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland which I quoted two years ago. That suggestion has inflamed the teaching profession, because every teacher knows that good labour is generally sacrificed to bad labour or, if one puts it in terms of what is called Gresham's Law, cheap labour always tends to drive out dear labour.
Education in Scotland has always been cheap. That is one of the great tragedies from which it suffers. Of course, I agree that the problem in that respect is, to some extent, historical, because it goes back to the days when the Scottish student, fortified by his poke of meal, used to trudge limitless miles in search of learning so that he might acquire it for himself and bring its benefits to others. It was cheap education, and those who chose to put what they had been taught into the minds and lives of others by teaching were repaid with salaries that were merely fit to keep body and soul together.
It was on that basis that Scottish education grew up, and, because it produced one who earned a tremendous respect in Scottish life—the dominie who brought forward the lad o'pairts who went, in turn, to university and then to all parts of the world to carry the name of Scotland and to distinguish himself—we concentrated education round an individual, again to the detriment of teaching as an organised profession. It is that which the teachers of Scotland are seeking to overcome.
They recognise that for everyone, whether working in a shipyard or an engineering shop, or whether he is a dentist, doctor or minister, there must be an accepted minimum standard of entry into his craft or profession. Teachers are seeking to establish that for themselves, but not, I fear, with the co-operation of the Secretary of State,


who is their parliamentary chief. He sees the reduction in standards as an easy and cheap method of solving a problem which would otherwise cost him a great deal more money than he is prepared to spend.
To meet the problems that face him, all sorts of bodies have made suggestions, including Glasgow Corporation and the Knox Committee, the E.I.S., and also hon. Members of this House. They have suggested to the Secretary of State ways whereby he could help to remedy some of the difficulties that face teaching and teachers in Scotland. In the debate to which I have referred the Minister of State, speaking for the Secretary of State, said:
My right hon. Friend is well aware of the acute difficulties under which the schools are working.
He went on to defend what the Secretary of State had so far done, and added
Great advances have, therefore, been made."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th March, 1959; Vol. 602, c. 1485–6.]
If those "great advances" which he claimed had been made are judged by what is happening in Scotland now, they show signs not of advance but of the complete failure of the Secretary of State to face up to the responsibilities that confront him now in education.
For the first time in the history of the profession, the teachers have indicated that they will come out on strike. That is an alarming situation. I have been associated with the profession for a long while. Time and again there have been attempts to get teachers to take what is called coercive action, but the general body were opposed to it on the ground that they had a great responsibility to the children, and that that responsibility should be their first consideration.
Now, however, they are beginning to feel that they are being sacrificed to the children and for the children; and they are compelled to this course from a sense of complete frustration. They have tried every door, but none has yielded. They are told that "great advances" have been made, but those "advances" still leave thousands of children in Glasgow with part-time education; leave schools under-staffed and teachers underpaid; and now threaten them with a diminution of their professional status.
It is because of these things, and because they have failed in every approach, either by themselves or through the local authorities, that the teachers have now decided to employ the ultimate sanction of the strike. I say to the Secretary of State that his onus is greater than ever. He must not allow this strike to take place. He is the man who can prevent it. He may have to yield something, but in yielding he will not lose face. Nor will he lose respect. Indeed, he will earn it.
He must decide whether the coffers of the Treasury are to pay the price demanded, or whether the children of Scotland are to pay it. If he says that the children must pay the price, then his name will fall in the estimation of every right-thinking person in Scotland. I feel that he will not do that—that he will not ask the children to pay. He will see that the Treasury foots the Bill. If he says that such is his intention, then he will earn the gratitude of every parent and every person in Scotland who values the word "education".

1.0 p.m.

The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): I should like, first, to add to what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) said at the beginning of his speech, my great regret at the reason why the hon. Lady the Member for Lanarkshire, North (Miss Herbison) is not with us today. We all wish her a very rapid recovery from the illness which has kept her from our counsels during the last ten days.
I am grateful to hon. Members for having raised this matter this morning and giving me the chance to speak, even relatively briefly, on this grave issue which has arisen in the teaching profession in Scotland. I am under no possible illusion about the extent of the concern felt among Scottish teachers which I find from reading the Press and from other sources.
As has been emphasised this morning, the concern has been largely about what has been regarded as an attack made on the standards of the profession. In a series of Answers over a good many months, right back into last year, I have tried to make it clear that there is no question of an attack on the standards of the profession, and I welcome this


opportunity further to explain the position.
Let me say, then, first, and emphatically, that I have not announced any decision to introduce to Scottish schools men teachers on general subjects who have not graduated from a university. I have not made any proposal that that should be done. It is the word "proposal" which is causing so much trouble. It is clear, from a number of references which I have read in the Press in recent weeks to "dilutionary proposals," that many people, in spite of what I have said, continue to state the contrary. It must be clear that we would not propose a new course of action unless its merits and demerits had been fully weighed and decisions taken on them. I repeat that no such decision has been taken and no proposal has been made.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: Mr. Emrys Hughes (South Ayrshire) rose——

Mr. Maclay: I would rather keep this as a consecutive speech.

Mr. Hughes: Can the right hon. Gentleman give a definite assurance that it will not be proposed?

Mr. Maclay: If the hon. Member will allow me to develop my speech, I will explain all the steps which would have to be taken before any situation like that would arise.
What has happened is as follows. The present regulations for the training of teachers have not been radically revised since 1931. We are now in the course of carrying out such a revision. The first part of this general review of training, dealing solely with the system of administration, was concluded in 1959. The second part, dealing with matters such as standards, content of training, and certification, started in June, 1960, with the issue of a memorandum by the Scottish Education Department.
Following normal practice, that memorandum was sent as a confidential document to teachers' organisations, local authority associations, training authorities, universities, churches and other interested bodies. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) made strong comments about this matter, and I will say a little more

about it. That this memorandum was confidential was completely normal practice. Precisely the same procedure was followed in the first part of the review.
As hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Shettleston, know it is the general practice for preliminary confidential discussions to be held prior to the framing of legislative proposals, not only on educational matters, but in many other fields where local authorities and other bodies are concerned. I agree that this issue has raised the important question of whether, when a document of this kind gets wide circulation, it can be treated as confidential. I am prepared to look at that, but it was no disrespect to the House, but simply normal procedure from which I could not suddenly depart, without consulting the bodies accustomed to getting these documents, that the memorandum was sent out as a confidential document. However, that is a matter which I would like to study in principle to see whether there is any way of getting over the difficulty.
Without quoting from the memorandum, it may be helpful if I mention some of the questions on which I wished to have some guidance. The question of the employment of non-graduate men teachers has caused very strong feeling, but that was only one of the questions. Among the others were standards of entry to the various courses of teacher training, the content, standards and length of the courses, the system of certification of teachers, the acceptability of various academic qualifications, the different systems of concurrent or consecutive training, the system of probation, and so on. What we did was to ask for observations on those various questions from the different bodies which I have mentioned. We asked for their views and opinions on the lines of action which it might be best to take.
Frankly, I should have been failing in my duty to Scottish education if I had not ensured that all those important issues were thoroughly discussed, even including the difficult question of non-graduate men teachers in general subjects. We have a challenging period in front of us. It is true, as the hon. Member for Maryhill and the hon. Member for Shettleston pointed out, that there has been a remarkable upsurge in recruitment to the colleges of education in the last few years. I will give the


figures in percentages, because they are striking in that way, too; and the absolute figures have already been given. The number entering training in the current session is about 41 per cent. above the number four years ago. Within that figure, the number of university graduates has risen by about 35 per cent. That is very good progress.
I realise that hon. Members and people outside the House may wonder why, if that is the case, we should be worried about the long-term future—this is not just the short-term, but the long-term view which we are considering. The reason is that, on the other hand, there are factors such as the serious loss of women teachers in the first few years of service, mainly through marriage, a loss which is nowadays a very important factor. Moreover, the demand for teachers is increasing. It is not just the new bulge now entering primary schools, but the welcome tendency—very much to be welcomed—for a greater number of pupils to stay on after the age of 15. There is also the need to reduce the size of classes below the present permitted maxima, a matter to which the Government have given first priority. We have the prospect of raising the school-leaving age to 16 in due course, and there is also the forthcoming expansion of further education.
On the supply side, we do not yet know with precision how many additional teachers such developments will require, nor how many we are likely to get. That will be more clear when the Departmental Committee on Supply, which is at present sitting, reports, and that should not now be very long. That Departmental Committee consists of two directors of education, the General Secretary of the Educational Institute of Scotland, the secretary of the Scottish Council for the Training of Teachers, and two officers of my Department. Beyond question, all those factors will require a further expansion of the intake of the profession which, I emphasise, in the United Kingdom as a whole already employs about one-third of the graduate population, a very large proportion.
As well as the numerical problems, there will also be staffing problems due to changing circumstances of a purely educational nature. For example, there is the radical change in secondary schools which has taken place over the last thirty

years. We have to face the fact that those schools now contain many pupils of average or lower ability who would not formerly have proceeded to secondary education. I am delighted that they are there, but it is a factor to be appreciated. There is a different type of child in the secondary schools, and how and what such children should be taught and what is the best training for those who are to teach them are obvious problems which we have to consider.
I emphasise that I have not attempted to come to any conclusion on any of the matters which have been under discussion and the strongly expressed views of the teachers will be very much in my mind when I do so. It must be recognised that there are good educational as well supply reasons for at least considering the question of non-graduate men teachers rationally and responsibly. It would be very irresponsible of me merely to ignore it. I am explaining why this bad word "dilution" did not appear in the document.

Mr. Rankin: Will the right hon. Gentleman define what he means by non-graduate men teachers? Does he mean non-qualified teachers?

Mr. Maclay: I do not think that I should go beyond the careful remarks I have been making, because this is a difficult problem.
I have made up my mind on nothing, and I have proposed nothing. This and the many other questions which must be considered are being discussed by officers of my Department with the bodies who were asked to comment on the memorandum. It is impossible to complete this round of preliminary discussions for some weeks, and I cannot curtail them without discourtesy to these important bodies whose views have yet to be heard. When, and only when, these discussions are concluded will I be in a position to reach tentative conclusions on all the questions involved in the light of all the opinions expressed. As I have said, I do not think that it would be right for me to do so until that stage is reached.
The House doubtless knows that I recently met a deputation from the three main teachers' associations who wished to know how far I should be prepared to go


to meet the teachers' demand that discussion of this question of the male non-graduate teachers of general subjects should be abandoned. I told them that I could not agree to abandon discussion of any of the questions in advance of hearing and considering the views of the bodies I had consulted but I assured them—and I ask the hon. Gentleman to notice this—that once the preliminary round of discussions had been completed, and I had formulated my views in the light of the opinions expressed I would certainly be willing to arrange for my tentative conclusions on the main questions at issue to be discussed with their organisations—and with the other bodies—as soon as possible and before they were published as definite proposals in draft regulations.
I emphasise the word "before", for reasons which hon. Members will appreciate. I shall not limit the period for representations on the draft Regulations to the minimum statutory period of 40 days. I shall allow at least three months. It is only after all representations on the draft Regulations have been fully considered that I will make the Regulations and lay them before the House.
I have arranged for the second round of consultations before draft Regulations are issued, because, as I have said, there has been no fundamental revision since 1931, and before any proposals are made they will obviously need the most careful thought. Furthermore, I want to make it perfectly clear that whether my first tentative conclusion is for or against any particular proposal there will be ample time for further discussion and consideration. I will still be prepared not only to listen to further arguments on it, but, if the arguments are cogent, to modify any initial views I may have formed. I am trying to stress that there will be plenty of time to discuss these matters, but it is extremely hard to say that I must be tied to a date by which I do not think it will be possible to get my discussions completed.

Mr. Hannan: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that it is this very uncertainty and the fact that he will have plenty of time which is adding to the anxiety, particularly as the summer term examinations are to be held in May?

Mr. Maclay: I realise that there must be some reason for the anxiety, but I think that what I have said shows that we are approaching the matter in a reasonable way, and I emphasise, both on this subject and on the salaries side, that there are others besides myself involved. There are the local authorities and many other people involved in this matter.
Hon. Members did not dwell heavily on the question of salaries, and I do not want to take up too much of the time of the House on this matter today, but it might be wise if I made my position absolutely clear. The teachers' representatives on the National Joint Council to deal with the salaries of teachers in Scotland tabled a claim in January for an increase on present salaries and for a reduction of all salary scales to ten years. The Council is the body to whose recommendations I am required by Statute "to have regard" before making salary regulations, that is, before making any changes in present scales.
The recommendation may be reached by agreement between the two sides, or as a result of arbitration between them. In either event it rests with me to accept, modify, or reject the recommendations which are put to me. Negotiations are, I understand, in progress on the Council; negotiations which will, in due course, result in recommendations to me. In these circumstances, I think that it would be improper for me to comment on the merits of the teachers' claim and thereby to prejudice, or appear to prejudice, in any way the Council's deliberations.
It has been suggested—not this morning, but in some quarters—that the legitimate salaries claims of the teachers have always been ignored. I have to be careful about this, because I do not want to prejudice the current negotiations and I would not dream of doing so, but it is only fair to remind the House that there have been four salaries increases in the last five years. The current salaries regulations were made as recently as 1st January, 1960—only fifteen months ago—and at that time it was understood that they were to remain in force for three years and that they implemented in full the recommendations agreed by the Council, that is, by the representatives of teachers and employers.
Indeed, on one or two points of detail we gave the teachers more than the Council recommended. They also went a long way—and this has a bearing on the speech of the hon. Member for Shettleston—towards implementing the recommendations of the Special Committee of the Advisory Council—the Knox Committee—in its Report on Measures to Improve the Supply of Teachers. I realise that they did not go the whole way, but many of the recommendations which had been brought to the attention of the National Joint Council were accepted.
It is also suggested that the present negotiations are taking an unconscionable time. I am in no way responsible for the conduct of these negotiations, but I think that it is only fair to the Council to say that this charge seems unjust. It is, I understand, true that the negotiating committee has met only once since the teachers' pay claim was tabled, but I should have thought that it was obvious that there must be a fairly long interval in negotiations of this kind after a claim has been tabled and before a counteroffer can be made, unless the claim is to be rejected out of hand.
The cost and implications of the claim must be worked out and considered. Alternative proposals may have to be considered in detail, and, as hon. Members know, teachers' salaries in Scotland are an extremely complicated structure and one has to think out carefully the cost of the proposals and what the implementation of them will mean. It is bound to take a considerable time. In short, it would clearly be unreasonable to suppose that the fact that the negotiating committee has met only once implies that nothing is being done about the teachers' claim. The tempo of the negotiations is broadly in line with what it has been on the previous occasions which I have been able to check.
May I now deal with one final point mentioned by the hon. Member for Shettleston who quoted from the Scotsman. It has been alleged that I have wilfully prejudiced the present negotiations by the Written Answer which I gave to a Question by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey). This is not the case. In reply to a Question from the hon. Member, asking for a comparison of the salaries of teachers

in 1939 and 1961 with those of other salary earners, I set out the facts on teachers' salaries and the salaries of the main grades in the Civil Service.
I made it clear in my Answer that the Civil Service had been chosen because salaries in the Civil Service are now based on the principle of fair comparison with salaries earned in comparable jobs outside the Service, and the movement of Civil Service salaries between 1939 and the present day gives some indication of the general movement of salaries in this period. In any case, no other information was readily available. Indeed, so far as I am aware no one who has criticised the Answer has suggested any more appropriate yardstick by which this movement might be measured.
I was not in any sense comparing salaries and qualifications of particular grades in the Civil Service with those of the various groups of teachers. I was giving information in response to a Parliamentary Question, and I really cannot assume responsibility for the conclusions drawn from that information, nor, as hon. Members know, can I refuse to give factual answers to Questions put to me in the House. That was the position. I was asked a Question and I had to answer it.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The right hon. Gentleman could not evade it.

Mr. Maclay: The hon. Member says that I could not evade it. He knows that over all the years I have never evaded a factual question.
I have tried this morning once again to make quite clear what the facts of the position are. I find it difficult to conceive how any section of a great and responsible profession, for which I have the highest regard, can seriously consider strike action in relation to prospective proposals before any conclusions have been reached as to what these proposals should be. I understand the intensity of feeling on the matter. I have tried to explain why the discussion of this point was stimulated and, as I have said before, full weight will be given to the views of the teaching profession, and there will be further opportunity for discussions with all concerned before any conclusions are reached.
I can assure hon. Members that questions of "face" have never caused me any great concern. When I am convinced that a thing is right I am always prepared to do it, and I will continue to watch this position with the greatest care. On both the main questions on which attention has been focussed by certain sections of the teaching profession discussions are going on at the moment. It would not be right for me to prejudge the issue in either case, and I hope that it will be accepted inside this House, and outside, that this attitude is reasonable and is, indeed, the only one which anyone with my responsibilities could properly adopt.

Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley: In the event of the Committee recommending an increase in salaries to teachers, will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that they will not be prejudiced by the long delay in arriving at a decision and that favourable consideration will be given to making the award retrospective?

Mr. Maclay: I cannot give any positive assurance of that kind on the Floor of the House, because these negotiations are under way and it would be quite wrong for me to say anything which might prejudice the course of those negotiations.

THE GAMBIA

1.22 p.m.

Mr. H. A. Marquand: Last week the House welcomed and passed through all its stages the Bill giving independence to Sierra Leone on 27th April. There now remains only one British Colony in West Africa—the Gambia. I welcome the opportunity today for a short discussion about the present situation and the future prospects of that extremely small Colony, whose affairs are very rarely discussed in the House.
I had the pleasure of visiting the Gambia for a few days in December last, in company with the hon. and gallant Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) and the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren). I am sure that they will join me in saying how warm was the welcome we

received from all sections of the people of the Gambia, both in the Colony and in the Protectorate, and how grateful we were for the gracious hospitality of Sir Edward and Lady Windley—and what a relief it was to be able to bathe in the waters of the Atlantic and to refresh ourselves after our more strenuous journey in Sierra Leone. It may be that one of my colleagues—if I may call them that—will refer later to the potentialities of the Gambia as a tourist resort.
We were delighted with the busy activity of the market in Bathurst and we admired the layout of the town, for which, I believe, the Admiralty was responsible in the past. We also admired the keenness of its town council to improve the housing conditions, and sympathised deeply with it at the fact that it had to conduct its municipal affairs from a miserable, dark, wretched-looking Nissen hut. On that occasion we undertook to say something about it when we got back to Britain, and here it is: we thought that the town hall was a disgrace to such a well laid out city, and hoped that if Her Majesty's Government were approached for help in providing a more satisfactory building from which to conduct the affairs of the town council they would respond sympathetically.
As well as visiting the Colony, consisting of Bathurst and its environs, we made journeys by river and jeep into the Protectorate, and had everywhere a very friendly if perhaps less exuberant reception than in Bathurst. Like Sierra Leone, this territory is divided into two parts—the Colony of Bathurst and its environs, with a population of between 35,000 and 40,000, and the Protectorate, with about 250,000 people. Today, the whole territory probably has a population of about 300,000. Accurate recent figures are not available. In other words, the total population of the Colony is less than that of a great many of our cities, excluding London.
Small though its population is, the Colony's area stretches for 300 miles along the vast Gambia River. On the whole, the Protectorate of the Gambia extends for not more than seven or ten miles on each side of that gigantic river. Such a formation, for a separate territory, is one of the great anomalies of


history. As soon as one sees it it strikes one very forcibly as rather absurd that both banks of a huge river like that should consist of one territory, and that the huge river should be separated from its own natural hinterland.
There is no geographical virtue in the boundaries; they are an accident of the history of war and trade, and they correspond to no natural division of the people. People living on either side of the Gambia River, whether in the Gambia territory or in Senegal territory, are of the same stock and very often the same tribes.
Like many of our small Colonies, the Gambia has suffered from the past policy—which ended in 1940 or thereabouts—of requiring every colonial territory to live from its own resources and to meet from those resources the expenses of British administration. It is necessarily a very poor country, consisting as it does of this narrow strip of land, with no mines and no great natural resources of minerals or any other product. It is thinly populated, by people living mostly in a tribal state. Clearly, it is not rich enough to undertake any sort of development.
Even in recent years—since the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts have come into operation—it has not had from this country the necessary measure of support, and has not been able to sustain the degree of economic growth which would be necessary if it were to be regarded as being treated fairly as compared with the rest of West Africa. It is a territory in West Africa, and people living there must, naturally, look with envy and some misunderstanding at the comparative prosperity of their neighbours.
It is a poor country, depending mainly on agriculture, and for its export almost wholly on groundnuts. Like many countries in the tropical belt of the world in recent years it has benefited more from improvements in human health than from improvements in capacity to produce. The birthrate for the territory as a whole was 40 per 1,000 in 1951, and it rose to 43 per 1,000 in 1957—a remarkable increase from what was already a very high level.
Infant mortality, which was 117 per 1,000, has dropped to 80 per 1,000. It is still a very high figure compared with

the figure in this country, but it represents a most substantial drop and we should all rejoice to think that babies have survived in that way. The crude death rate has declined from 18 to 16 per 1,000. This means that the length of life is greater and that the number of babies surviving the hazards of a tropical existence is very much greater. Naturally, in consequence, the population increase is formidable, and it is much greater than the ability to produce additional foodstuffs has been in so short a time.
Not merely was the Gambia confronted with this difficulty of a population rising more rapidly than its resources but, in addition, it had to suffer, from 1950 to 1959, from a steady and sometimes sharp fall in the price of the staple product, groundnuts. This is the only substantial export of the people and their main means of buying from abroad the clothing, housing materials, vehicles and other things which they can obtain only from more industrialised countries.
Since then they have been bedevilled by the curse of the tropical countries everywhere, fluctuations in the price of groundnuts, which form their main crop. The ups and downs of the groundnuts market have made it extremely difficult for the territory to be self-sustaining. In all those circumstances it is not surprising that the schools are few and very crude. I suggest that it is deplorable that recently the fees in the schools have been raised. Living in our advanced society, the people in this country are able to send their children to school according to their needs, and those parents who do not want to pay for the education of their children need not pay for it. The vast majority of us do not pay for it.
In Bathurst, on the other hand, we were told while we were there—no doubt the hon. Gentleman will correct me if I have the figures wrong—that the school fees were being raised from 1s. a week to 5s. a week. That is a substantial increase and a substantial sum of money for parents to find for their children's education.
The roads are deplorable and, generally speaking, there has been no major growth in the economy to compensate for the rapid growth in population, to say nothing of the low level in which the Colony found itself in any


case back in 1950, before these remarkable changes in the survival and death rates began to have to be affected after the use of penicillin, D.D.T., and the other discoveries of the war.
The total revenue of the Colony, which was £1,993,000 in 1957, was only £1,457,000 in 1959. This fall is a result of the decline in the value of groundnuts and the fluctuations in the groundnut price. The Gambia has always had a narrow margin between its revenue and its expenditure, except for a year or two when the price of groundnuts mounted temporarily to a peak. Now the Colony suffers from a deficit.
In a despatch of 17th May, 1960, sent by the Secretary of State to the Governor of the Gambia it was stated that in those circumstances—the circumstances of a deficit—
Her Majesty's Government are ready to assist the Gambia Government by providing a general grant-in-aid of administration. As, however, I am sure you will appreciate, they cannot contemplate meeting an ever-increasing deficit. It will, therefore, be necessary, so long as United Kingdom assistance is required, for the finances of the Colony to be brought under the formal control of Her Majesty's Government. … In addition, I request you to seek my prior approval before authorising additional expenditure under any head that would cause the total expenditure under the head to exceed the approved provision by more than 10 per cent.
These are the very severe conditions of grant-aided colonial administration.
That was in May, 1960. Not surprisingly, there was further correspondence and some protest on behalf of the Gambia at that decision that they were to become a grant-aided Colony with all their expenditure subject to detailed consideration and scrutiny by the Treasury in this country.
We come to the despatch of 30th September, 1960, again from the Secretary of State, in which he said:
Naturally, in scrutinising the draft estimates of a territory that will require a grant-in-aid in order to balance its budget Her Majesty's Government will wish to be satisfied that proposed expenditure is limited to your essential requirements for the administration of the territory and that all due economies are being observed
He went on:
I believe that the view is also held that it would be more acceptable to the Gambia if any financial assistance that Her Majesty's Government might be willing to give were to

take the form of a subsidy for groundnuts rather than a grant in aid of the colony's budget.
This moved away a little from strict grant-aided requirements and made an offer which was naturally acceptable—that some support for the price of groundnuts might be a better way. That was given. As a result, it was possible while we were there for His Excellency the Governor to announce that the marketing board would be able to pay the farmers £27 a ton instead of the previous £24 a ton; but that price of £27 a ton, which they received with some gratitude, is, nevertheless, well below what they had been receiving in past years and it is still below the French price.
The short conclusion from the recital of these events is that without question development has been retarded—and it has been retarded because the price of groundnuts has fallen. That is why the revenue of the Colony has diminished. The fall in that price is in no way the fault of the territory. There is little wonder, then, that the Secretary of State, answering Questions here on 7th February, said:
The Gambia is a peculiarly difficult problem to solve.
He added:
… economic help, of course, does not remove the fundamental difficulty of what in a sense—looking at it geographically—is an anomaly on the West coast of Africa, and it is a very difficult problem to solve."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th February, 1961; Vol. 633, c. 196–7.]
This is true, and it is only natural, in those circumstances, that lately there has been a good deal of talk in the Gambia—some of it reached our ears—about the possibility of a closer association with Senegal. Opinion is very much divided. There is a very strong feeling of affection for the British way of life among many people, especially in the Colony, and I should be the last to say that it ought to be lightly dismissed.
On the other hand, Senegal is obviously more prosperous. The figures published recently by the Organisation for European Co-operation and Development, which I quoted in respect of Sierra Leone, apply even more forcibly to the Gambia. The French have helped Senegal more from their resources than Britain has helped the Gambia. The contrast is remarkable.


Gambia people living in the midst of Senegal are well aware of it.
The country has just embarked on a new constitutional development which does not represent a very rapid advance towards self-government. It has a Legislative Council, a Speaker, elected members, and an Executive Council, over which the Governor presides and in which there are still four nominated members but six Ministers chosen from the Legislative Council. It is not a big constitutional advance, and I know from what I have heard that it has been very disappointing to some people.
I have not the time to go into these political questions. Obviously, in the Executive Council now constituted, debate on the possible future of the territory must go on. This is an opportunity for the elected representatives of the people in the future to discuss the possible future of their country, suffering as it is from the heavy handicap of having a one-crop economy.
In my view, there should be a further development towards a full ministerial system and, if possible, party government before very long. While that process is going on, it gives an opportunity for the people at elections, or for the legislators in debate, to express their opinion as to the possible future of the Gambia in this new situation in Africa, where every other territory is advancing to full self-government so rapidly. They must have listened with some envy to the announcement recently made about Tanganyika. While all this is going on, there should be, in my judgment, a much more rapid effort to help this country in every way possible. I know that this is difficult, but there must be ways of giving a greater volume of aid and a more rapid acceleration of development than has happened hitherto.
It is an accident that that small country has become dependent on this House for its living. It has not been through any fault whatever of the people themselves. It would be wrong to allow this little country to appear to be, or to feel that it was being, neglected in these circumstances when other African countries are advancing so fast and becoming completely independent.
I say to the hon. Gentleman: do not fully impose the rigours of Treasury control on the Gambia; but rather see

whether we cannot find, through international agencies or colonial development and welfare funds, or in other ways, some outside aid which can be given urgently, so that the country may be built into as strong and viable an economy as it can have in the present situation. In this way, if, at some time in the future, it has to take a decision whether it wishes to be completely independent, or whether it wishes to join with Senegal in a new kind of association, it will be able to do so from a firm basis of as near economic independence as can possibly take place in these circumstances. It will be able to do so then from a basis of democracy and the choice made will be the choice of the people, perhaps after a referendum.
I do not advocate that happening tomorrow, because I do not believe that the people of the Gambia are on a strong enough economic foundation to undertake such a choice. I want to see more and more aid pushed in and particularly help to the co-operative societies, which have only just got going there but which, it seemed to me, were under extremely good leadership. Some of this aid would, perhaps, be in the form of technical assistance not only from Britain, the United States, France and other countries who will provide aid, but also perhaps from our African partners in the Commonwealth.
Nigeria, for example, which is large and rich, might be able to supply some technical assistance to the Gambia so that its people felt they were not cut off from the rest of Africa but were joining in the march, albeit a little behind the others, through no fault of their own, towards ultimate self-determination.

1.44 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel J. K. Cordeaux: As the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) said at the beginning of his speech, we had the opportunity a week ago, on the Second Reading of the Sierra Leone Independence Bill, of welcoming a new country into the Commonwealth. I had on that occasion the opportunity of saying how much I and my colleague, the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren), enjoyed our trip to Sierra Leone and the Gambia under the leadership of the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand).
Perhaps I may again take this opportunity of saying how much we enjoyed the second half of our trip which took us to the Gambia and how much we appreciated there, as we did in Sierra Leone, the very great ability and charm of manner with which the right hon. Gentleman led the delegation.
I agree with every word that the right hon. Gentleman has said in the debate today. That rather suggests that I shall be saying the same thing in different words, but I shall try not to be too repetitive.
We know that the present position in the Gambia is that as a result of its increasingly unfavourable financial position and rising trend of deficits for the future, for so long as we can see ahead, the Gambia is now in the position of being a grant-in-aid Colony. That grant-in-aid was decided upon in May, 1960, and it means a somewhat closer control of expenditure by Whitehall.
The right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East has already quoted from despatches on the subject. He quoted one which I intended to quote and as it is comparatively short, and in order that the arguments which I want to put forward may follow suitably one after the other I hope that I shall be excused for quoting part of it again. It is from the letter of the Colonial Secretary, dated 17th May, in which he says:
… Her Majesty's Government are ready to assist the Gambia Government by providing a general grant-in-aid of administration. As however I am sure you will appreciate, they cannot contemplate meeting an ever-increasing deficit. It will therefore be necessary, so long as United Kingdom assistance is required, for the finances of the Colony to be brought under the formal control of Her Majesty's Government.
In addition—and the right hon. Member did not quote this in his speech—the Colonial Secretary's letter goes on to say:
Finally, in regard to your capital budget, I note that this year provision has been made for over £1 million to be spent on development. In my despatch No. 110 of the 30th November, 1959, I accepted the development programme as reasonably conceived in the light of the physical capacity of the Gambia to undertake the capital works proposed and the financial resources on which at that time it was understood you could rely to meet expenditure. In view, however, of the marked deterioration in the overall financial position in recent months, I hope you will agree that your capital programme should be urgently reviewed. …

In the reply which was sent by Sir Edward Windley, the Governor, shortly after that, he said, and I quote from his despatch of 31st May, 1960:
Efforts for economy in this sense will be maintained. I must, however, record that neither I nor the Executive Council believe that there exist worthwhile 'economies' in the sense that there are extravagant 'frills' to be excised or services which can be retrenched. On the contrary, I am certain that there will be some inevitable increases in expenditure. You refer in your despatch to the cost of implementing the possible recommendations of a Salaries Commission: in addition I must anticipate that there will be increases in the Police establishment, following the advice of your Inspector-General and new provision for the labour services following the report of the recent Commission. In general I believe that the main administrative functions of government have been sustained with the utmost economy—an enonomy which present-day, and growing, political tempo makes imprudent and even dangerous. As regards the social services, I believe that equal restraint has been shown.
I particularly want to emphasise that part of Sir Edward Windley's despatch in which he says that the economies which have been made in the main administrative functions of Government are imprudent and even dangerous. I gained the impression from what I saw on my visit that the economies which had been exercised in some departments were very extreme.
I had the pleasure of being invited out to the police headquarters. I saw the dress rehearsal of the review of the police which the Governor was to make on the following day. I noticed that the new recruits to the police force and those undergoing refresher courses were dressed in what I can only describe as the most disreputable clothes. On the day of the review they would wear proper uniforms, no doubt, but I formed the impression that while undergoing training they had been wearing uniforms which did not give them the pride in their profession which a better dress might have given them. That was one of the forms of economy that had to be practised.
The barracks consist of various blocks on one side of a large field, with other blocks on the other side of the field. I discovered that for financial reasons the electricity supply had not been taken to the far side of the barracks. I was told that the result is that none of the recruits is able to carry out the evening studies which are so necessary if he is to pass his examinations. That may seem


to be a small point, but it is symptomatic of the extreme and very undesirable economy which apparently had to be carried out at the time in this very essential service.
There was undoubtedly alarm on the part of many Gambians, and, indeed, on the part of our own people out there, that to try to achieve this budgetary balance the expansion of really vital services might be checked. I very much hope that that does not happen. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken about one vital service, namely, education. It seemed to us to be a very tragic thing that only about 13 per cent. of all the children in the Gambia were receiving a primary education. That is one of the worst records of all the Crown Colonies.
Another most essential service which very badly needs expansion is communications. The Gambia until very recently has suffered from shocking communications. There is no doubt about that, although it has one of the most marvellous forms of water communication anywhere in the world. The superb river which runs through the length of Gambia for over 300 miles is navigable by ocean-going vessels for 150 miles, that is to say half way. The whole 300 miles are navigable for vessels of 6 ft. draught. However, there are no railways. As the right hon. Gentleman said, the hinterland is only about 10 miles on either side of the river.
Until comparatively recently roads, except for bush roads, were almost non-existent. I admit that a great deal of road making has been done in recent years, particularly on the north side of the river. Present developments in road making on the south bank of the river are equally impressive. I had the opportunity of seeing what is being done. At present a metal trunk road, which is practically the only one in the south of the Protectorate, is being constructed on the south bank from Brikama, which is already linked by a metal road to Bathurst, to Mansa Konko which is 150 miles from Bathurst and half way across the Colony. The first 35 miles of the road from Brikama will be completed this May, in the remarkably short time of one year since the contract was placed. Although I am open to correction on this, I rather think that the contract for the remaining part of the road has not yet been given.
I hope very much that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary can assure us, when he replies, that there will be no question of that work being slowed up for financial reasons. When the road is completed it will open up the Colony on the south bank of the river as fully as it has already been opened up on the north bank. The contract for the first part of the road was given to a French firm. I have no doubt that the same firm will get the contract for the remaining part of the road. It is natural that the French got the contract, because they had all their road making equipment nearby.
Anyone visiting the Gambia notices with a shock that the moment he crosses the border from the Gambia into Senegal he goes from a fairly bad road system to a thoroughly good road system. Few differences between the two territories—French and British—impress one more than when one crosses the frontier and notices that the poor type of laterite road gives way to a good metal road. We noticed that very particularly when we were there. It is symptomatic of the fact that the French have been able to produce a far higher standard of social and economic development in Senegal than we have been able to do in Gambia. There are of course obvious geographical and other reasons for that.
The question raised constantly in the despatches between Sir Edward Windley and the Colonial Secretary is whether the revenue of the Gambia can be increased in any way. It is extremely difficult to see how it can be, because the estimated population of the Gambia seems to be about the same as my own City of Nottingham, namely, about 320,000. It is impossible to see how there is sufficient market for a reasonable secondary industry to be started in Bathurst.
However, I want to make one suggestion. I believe that there is scope in the Gambia for a very thriving tourist industry. When I was there I met a representative of a fairly high-powered tourist firm who had gone to Bathurst with the object of seeing whether the Gambia could be included in the holiday tours his firm was arranging, which had previously been confined to the Canaries and Madeira. He was enthusiastic about the tourist potentialities of the Gambia. He was fascinated by the river. He wanted to include the Gambia in his firm's


tour so that the trip up the Gambia River could be included. Indeed, I think it obvious that it would be an attraction.
We had an opportunity to make a comparatively short trip up the river. It is very beautiful. The bird life is magnificent and crocodiles can nearly always be relied upon to show themselves on the banks, although I suppose that some tourists might possibly miss this. I am sure that the friendly villagers living on the river banks would be only too pleased to co-operate. Unfortunately, although otherwise he would have included Gambia in the tours arranged by his firm, its representative found there were no river craft in existence which would accommodate passengers, and which apparently he expected to find. That is a way in which, with a little help, and by the provision of such craft, we might be able to encourage some sort of tourist industry.
In considering the future of Gambia, the right hon. Member for Middlesborough, East has already referred to the possibility of some economic tie-ups with Senegal as being desirable. His Excellency the Governor referred to that in his speech at the opening of the Legislative Assembly when we were there. I feel sure that if the people of the Gambia—it is for the people to make the choice—would like some sort of economic tie-up with Senegal, there are many degrees of such a tie-up which might be considered. It might be anything from a loose economic tie-up to something amounting almost to federation. Nevertheless, there could be no reason why the Gambia should leave the Commonwealth. We have proved ourselves more than adept at keeping people in the Commonwealth. It would have been logical had India left the Commonwealth, for example, but we always seem to manage to retain these countries and I am sure we shall be able to do the same in respect of Gambia.
Naturally, no pressure of any sort should be brought by us to loosen our ties with the Gambia in any way whatever. I think that we owe her a great debt and we must do everything possible to assist her. I understand from a wireless programme I listened to this morning that the Economic Secretary to

the Treasury has said that last year we spent £300 million on the underdeveloped countries, and if we can do that I am sure that we can spare a little more for the Gambia. It seems to me that the more troublesome—if I may use that word—are our Colonies, the more money we pay out to help them, and in that connection I am thinking particularly of Cyprus. Surely, therefore, we can do a little more to help one of the oldest and the most friendly of our Colonies.
The position is well summed-up by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Edward Windley, in a despatch of 12th January, 1960, from which I should like to quote:
The Gambian members of the Executive Council wish me to express their confidence that Her Majesty's Government will consider with understanding and sympathy the special limitations which have been imposed on Gambia's ability to support herself. These limitations are historic and geographic, but in neither case are they of Gambia's making.

2.4 p.m.

Mr. Martin McLaren: I warmly support and confirm what has fallen from the lips of my hon. Friends. Perhaps my task is harder in that I must not be repetitive. It seems to me that today, in respect of West Africa, the British are rather like a man with four daughters. Their names are Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra and Gambia. Three of these children are settled in the world and on their own, and now we have to think of what should be done for the remaining child and what its destiny should be.
The Gambia has a special problem owing to its peculiar geography, this long narrow strip of land on either side of a large river with a population of nearly 300,000 people. The soil is light, even sandy, and groundnuts are the predominant crop. Therefore there is the inherent disadvantage of an economy dependent on a single product and upon the world price of that product. I read in a report dating back to 1870 the following sentence:
The revenue, depending as it does mainly on the export of groundnuts, must be always precarious and fluctuating.
Those words are as true now, nearly a hundred years later, as when they were written.
I am glad to note that some other crops are being attempted, such as citrus


fruits, and I fully support what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Colonel Cordeaux) said about the eventual possibilities of a tourist industry in a country where, for most of the year, the climate is very pleasant. It comes back to the fact that the whole economy of the country is too small to be successful in the modern world. There is evidence of that from the fact that it has not been worth while for anybody to set up any kind of secondary industry even in Bathurst, the capital. A market based on a population of only 300,000 people is not large enough.
Bathurst is really a large village. It does not, for instance, contain a book shop, and the local newspapers carry on only with the greatest difficulty. As was said by the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), the town council is housed in a miserable Nissen hut and does not know where to raise funds to provide itself with more suitable accommodation. The social services in the country are still very backward. We have heard mention of the deplorable figure of only about 13 per cent. of children able to receive education in primary schools. The road system is still most primitive, except in the neighbourhood of Bathurst. Agriculture is still carried on by hand. Ploughing, sowing, weeding and harvesting are all done according to the Biblical system, though slowly farmers are being encouraged to use mechanical implements drawn by oxen.
Valiant efforts are being made by the local government to remedy these admitted deficiencies, and I should like to pay a warm tribute to the work and devotion of the Governor, Sir Edward Windley, Mr. Kenneth Smith, the Civil Secretary, and others concerned in the Government of Gambia both African and European. They are pressing forward as fast as possible. New schools are being built; a teachers' training college is in full operation and new roads are being constructed. I should like to give an honourable mention to the tropical research station of the Medical Research Council under the direction of Dr. MacGregor. It is doing very good work on various aspects of tropical medicine, and particularly on trachoma, the eye disease which is such a scourge in the tropics. The only limit

to its activities is the amount of money available.
When one looks back on the past, one realises how little the Mother Country has spent on the Gambia, at any rate up to 1939. Treasury control in those days was very strict, and it was the theory that each Colony must be self-supporting. If the public revenue was small it followed that public expenditure must also be small, irrespective of the public need. The salaries of the Governor and of the judges all had to fall on the local revenue. Since 1939 things have been much better and I feel that we have been somewhat more generous. I cannot think of any series of Acts which have been passed here at Westminster which have had a more benevolent effect than the Colonial Development and Welfare Acts which have made possible useful projects in the Gambia, such as the modernisation of the hospital in Bathurst.
There is, however, still much leeway to be made up. I feel sure that the airport should be modernised and a new concrete runway installed there so that the large jet airliners can use the airport. The Gambia suffers from relatively poor communications. Many of the ships do not call there on their way to the West African Coast, and the place is perhaps isolated. If it had a major airport and was used by the airliners on their way to South America, it would be placed more firmly on the map of the world. I agree that it is very noticeable how much more the French have been willing to spend on neighbouring Senegal than we have spent on the Gambia, and I felt rather a sense of shame when I noticed the difference in the standard of the roads, near the border of the two countries.
When we ask ourselves what should be the destiny of the Gambia, I think of two things. First, Her Majesty's Government should be generous and help the country to modernise herself. Secondly, we have to consider the facts of economic geography. The Gambia is surrounded on three sides by the Senegal, previously a French Colony and now an independent State, and I feel that the political leaders of the Gambia might be well advised to consider whether some form of association might be to the mutual advantage of both countries. The Gambia would get the


benefit of the larger markets and Senegal would get the advantage of the use of the river.
It may be of historic interest to remember that in the eighteenth century, when parts of Senegal were under the British Crown, the two possessions were linked together for some years under the name of Senegambia. There was another time when the Gambia was linked administratively with Sierra Leone. This tends to show that it is really difficult for the Gambia to be on a limb of her own. One can think of an economic association with Senegal, in the form of a Customs union, or one can think of an even closer political union. I agree so much with what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central said, that the important principle is that the Gambians themselves should choose what their destiny should be. They should not be made to feel in any way that the least pressure is being put upon them from London. Those two points combine together, because the more we can modernise and enrich the country the easier it will be for there to be a happy arrangement between her and her neighbours.
The Gambia is a delightful place. The people are of a happy and sunny disposition. Strangers greet each other in the street. There is a splendid absence of any racial prejudice. For instance, there is a dining club in Bathurst, with equal membership from among the Africans and the Europeans, who hold very pleasant monthly meetings, one of which we all attended. The country has been a British possession since 1664—the oldest in West Africa. It is a place which has been dealt with in the great European treaties, such as the Treaty of Utrecht and the Treaty of Versailles. Ships from my own constituency of Bristol have sailed there for hundreds of years. We are very proud of the Gambians, and I believe they are proud of their British connection and are much looking forward to the visit to be paid later this year by Her Majesty the Queen.
It is right that the House should consider sympathetically the situation in the Gambia. I know that the Colonial Office has been treating her with understanding. I only hope that this debate will encourage the Colonial Office to do even

more and that it will also hearten the people of the Gambia themselves.

2.16 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Hugh Fraser): I should like to congratulate the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand), my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Nottingham, Central (Lieut.-Col. Cordeaux) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. McLaren) on having taken this opportunity of bringing to the attention of the House this matter of the Gambia and, if I may say so, on having dealt with it so well.
The speeches which we have heard were well-informed and constructive and they may be said to fall into three main sections: first, the economic assistance that we in this country can give; secondly, the political advance in the territory; and, thirdly, the wide question of where the Gambia's future destinies should lie.
Therefore, I begin my speech by referring to the amount of colonial development and welfare allocations which have been made by the home Government to the Gambia under the various Acts. Those total £2,700,000. I am glad that my hon. and gallant Friend and the right hon. Gentleman pinpointed the main problem of the Gambia economically, which is its dependence on a monoculture, namely, groundnuts. I was also glad that they pointed out the advances that have been made in other directions, although only of a tentative sort, and, in addition, I was interested in my hon. and gallant Friend's reference to the possibility of encouraging tourism in the area, which is a matter into which I shall inquire.
The right hon. Gentleman dealt at some length, and rightly so, with the question of the grant-in-aid, the problems of the economy and the budgetary situation. This also was touched on by my hon. and gallant Friend. I think that I should say something on this specific point and give some reassurances on the questions of road building and of education. The Gambia, in 1959 and 1960, as hon. Members will know, ran a Budget deficit, and during the course of 1960 it became clear that the low world price of groundnuts and the gradual rise in the cost level of Government services


would cause expenditure considerably to outstrip revenue. Therefore, Her Majesty's Government accepted that it was no longer possible for the Gambia to meet her current expenditure, that that position might remain for some time, and that the best action this Government could take was to assist the Gambia by way of grant-in-aid.
Various projects were put to my right hon. Friend by the Governor, Sir Edward Windley, who is a splendidly outspoken Governor both in his despatches and in his private conversations. I am sure that all who know him hold him in great respect. Nevertheless, the decision taken by my right hon. Friend was the correct one, not to agree to a system of block grant or the other proposals put forward.
The system of grant-in-aid has been designed and developed to give the proper balance between the interests of the receiving territories and the interests of the home taxpayer. Experience of the system has, I believe, shown that it works well. We are, therefore, following this method. We have to observe the normal practices, of course, of controlling to some extent the expenditure in the Gambia, but I assure the House that any suggestion made by the new Government in Gambia will be looked at favourably.

Mr. Marquand: Have any extravagances been found anywhere? Is there any point at which it is reasonable to demand retrenchment?

Mr. Fraser: No, Sir. Up to the present there has not been any. We did have some cause for alarm about the capital budget, not so much for the money expended but for the possibility of the territory spending the money in the time allocated. Of course, as the right hon. Member knows, it is a very common occurrence in some of the Colonial Territories that capital budgets cannot be fully spent in the year for which they are drawn up.
It has been suggested that the level of United Kingdom assistance to the Gambia is very small and hardly worth the trouble of these new arrangements. It is true that the grant this year is expected to be only about £150,000 in a recurrent budget of £2·1 million. However, a further £450,000 of the Budget will have to be covered by a final running down of certain reserves, and the long-

term dependence on Her Majesty's Government is at present estimated to be about 30 per cent. of the Budget.
In addition, the Gambia this year expects to draw about £600,000 from colonial development and welfare funds as part of a capital budget of £800,000. It will be one of the tasks of the new Gambia Government to draw up a development programme, and when the plan has been drawn up, the Gambia will, I am sure, find Her Majesty's Government ready to consider their needs fairly, bearing in mind the resources available and other demands upon them.
The right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends have referred to some of the urgent needs. I am glad to say that the programme of road building is going ahead. It will, at last, soon be possible to drive by the all-weather road from Bathurst along the south of the river to the Trans-Gambia road. A go-ahead programme of educational building is now being started. This will progressively provide a full primary education for all who seek it and, over the next ten years, will raise the enrolment of children in the Protectorate from about 10 per cent. or 13 per cent. to 50 per cent. I assure the House that in these matters Her Majesty's Government will do everything possible to assist.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to the possibility of help coming from other African territories of the Commonwealth. I am glad to say that both the Nigerian and the Ghanaian Government have, in setting up a new labour organisation, been of considerable assistance to us and have lent us officers from Nigeria and from Ghana.
I turn now to the other two matters which have rightly been raised in the debate. First, I shall say something—this is a good occasion to take the opportunity—about the important constitutional changes made in 1960. In fact, these have been taken even a stage further forward during the last few days. I believe that the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friends were present when Sir Edward Windley proposed the changes in December, but I will just recall to the House what has happened.
Since 1960, when the first elections under universal adult suffrage were carried out throughout the country, including the Protectorate, we have seen


the House of Representatives composed entirely of elected members. The six Gambians who have been in the Executive Council, although they had no previous Ministerial experience, have worked with such industry and co-operation that the Governor was able in December, when the right hon. Member and others were present, to say that he hoped that there would this year be another step forward in the appointment of a Minister in whose hands the co-ordination of the whole field of ministerial responsibility could be placed.
I am happy to say that the Governor was able last month to begin talks and, a fortnight ago, was able to appoint Mr. P. S. N'Jie as the first Chief Minister of the Gambia. He was able also to appoint five Ministers with Portfolios. I am sure the House will join with me in wishing the Chief Minister and his team well in their new responsibilities. I believe that the new system will work well.
As the right hon. Member and my hon. Friends know, there are some important political elements in the Legislature who will not be directly represented in the Executive Council. This is, of course, perfectly proper, but I think that we must all hope that the Gambian leaders will find means of reaching agreement among themselves on the important issues which, as is well recognised on both sides of this House, face their small country and that division on purely party lines will not prevent unity on these major matters.
As the Gambia develops its own specific, proper and, if I may say so, complete democratic institutions, undoubtedly the Gambians will turn their minds to where there best destiny lies. The right hon. Gentleman mentioned that one possible future for the Gambia is to be found in economic or even political union with her chief neighbour, Senegal. One of the points he made was that, should there be a need for a decision to be taken on this, at least a referendum should be carried out among the people of the Gambia. My hon. and gallant Friend thought that there should be full consultation of the views of the Gambian people and that we should not in any way put pressure upon the Gambians to reach any such decision.
I assure the House that it would be impossible to envisage a situation in which Her Majesty's Government would consent to the merger of a territory with ties of friendship with Britain lasting more than 200 years in established political time—if one traces it further back into the wilder periods of history, lasting a further 200 years beyond that—with another country unless it was abundantly clear that this was the will of the Gambian people. Whatever the future of the Gambia may ultimately be, I am sure that we can give that pledge unreservedly.
Where Gambia's future does lie is not for me precisely to predict, but I am quite sure that all things should be done at an economic level to make contacts and ties across the border with Senegal, the country which entirely surrounds this strange and friendly island of British interest and British people. With the development of the two economies, it will be increasingly difficult to isolate one from the other, and I believe that this must be the main consideration of the Ministers who are now taking office. Co-operation has already been established. This is remarkably shown by the building of the trans-Gambia highway across the river to link the two parts of Senegal. I hope that these contacts, established by the last Government, will be followed by the present Government.
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising this interesting topic. On behalf of the House, I am certain that I can assure the people of Gambia that we will bear their proper interests in mind.

NATIONAL PARKS

2.30 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: I am grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing a short debate on the National Parks, because I was rather frustrated some weeks ago when the Second Motion on the Order Paper which was in my name was not reached. However, it is quoted in HANSARD for 22nd February, as follows:
That this House while appreciating the progress made in the last eleven years in connection with National Parks, is of the opinion that time has shown the need for amendment of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949, in a number of respects,


particularly in regard to the financial arrangements for National Parks and the further strengthening of the Act against the forces which tend to destroy or impair them; and urges Her Majesty's Government to introduce amending legislation accordingly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1961; Vol. 635, c. 637.]
The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949, provided for the designation of a number of extensive areas of beautiful country in England and Wales as National Parks. That is not my personal definition. I poached it from somewhere, but I am not sure where.
The time has come for a realistic assessment of the position of the National Parks, particularly because in last night's debate on afforestation in the National Parks the rights of land owners were constantly emphasised. The question arose in my mind whether it is a matter of the nation versus the land owners. Are the open spaces of the National Parks the private preserves of the land owners, or are they part of our nation's heritage and therefore for the men who, in two world wars in my lifetime, have fought for Britain?
I remind the House that we are living in the second half of the twentieth century and not in the second half of the eighteenth or nineteenth century. I speak, not as an expert of any kind, but merely as an ordinary citizen. I cannot claim any detailed knowledge of the National Parks. I have visited most of them and I know Dartmoor fairly well. The film prepared by the West Region B.B.C. entitled "The Last Wilderness", which has been shown in the West Region, depicts Dartmoor in its stark simplicity and naturalness. Anyone who can appreciate a beautiful bit of countryside or mountain is bound to feel a thrill when he goes over Dartmoor.
I have been criticised in the House because I take too great an interest, as it is thought, in Dartmoor, but Dartmoor belongs to the nation. It is not the preserve of Members of Parliament who represent Devonshire. Anyone who knows anything about names will recognise that mine is a Devon name. My father's people lived in south-east Devon for centuries. My mother's people lived in Cornwall for centuries and I was born in Cornwall. But I have an affinity for Devon and Dartmoor, as is natural.
We in Cornwall have no National Park, but we have designated areas of outstanding natural beauty. Anyone who knows the cliffs of Cornwall, particularly those on our north coast and our moorlands, particularly Bodmin Moor, will appreciate that we love our coasts and moors and find great recreational spirit in them. Anyone who has not been on the north coast of Cornwall in a north-westerly gale in winter does not know what our cliffs can mean.
Furthermore, we have on our cliffs rather unusual flora. I am sorry to say that the depredations of agriculture, in some parts administered by the National Trust, have wiped out some of this outstanding and unusual flora. My wife and I saw an unusual plant on a part of our north coast thirty-five years ago. I have not told anyone where it is except someone at the Nature Conservancy. He was not in the least interested. Therefore, the secret will go down to the grave with my wife and I, because we feel that there is no real appreciation in the Government Departments of what our natural beauty and flora and fauna really mean to many people. I will not recapitulate the legislation and administration concerning the National Parks because that has been done before. There are two main points that I should like to stress—adequate finance, and amendment of the law where necessary.
In referring to the National Land Fund, I wish to quote from some notes which were kindly prepared for me by the statistical department of our Library. They state:
The story of the National Land Fund revenue is this. In 1946 Mr. Dalton described the Fund as 'a nest egg, set aside, which could be used to finance some of the operations necessary in order to give the public permanent access to the National Parks'. £50 million was set aside out of moneys received from the sale of surplus war stores and surplus receipts from Government trading activities. In July, 1954, the Committee on Public Accounts recommended to the Treasury that they should consider the desirability of legislation to return to the Exchequer some part of the large and growing balance of the Fund as being, in the Committee's view, a substantial amount of public money for which then was no foreseeable need. The comment of the National Parks Commission, in their Sixth Report, paragraph 27, was: 'We ourselves think that the use of moneys in the


National Land Fund for National Park purposes would be in line with the original intention of the Fund, and would provide an earnest of the Government's positive interest in National Parks and a stimulus to all those who are concerned with them. We believe that if, for instance, it were made possible for a specified sum to be made available annually for a number of years ahead, Park Planning Authorities and ourselves would be enabled to make forward plans on projects which normally take a long time to mature and to initiate and promote a really effective National Parks programme'.
Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop brought in the National Parks (Amendment) Bill on 30th January, 1959. In replying to that debate, the Minister of Housing and Local Government said:
I know it was suggested in the early days of the National Parks idea that the National Land Fund might be used for National Parks. In fact, during these ten years, it never has been."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th January, 1959; Vol. 598, c. 1489.]
It so happens that within the last week or two, there has been controversy on this very question of financing the National Parks. On 14th March, a leader in the Guardian read thus:
The Land Fund is a useful device for enabling the Treasury to accept property (such as historic houses or land) and chattels (such as works of art) in payment of death duties, and to place them in safe hands. Its annual accounts, made public yesterday, show that 1959–60 was the quietest year it has had for some time; its total outgoings were £255,000 or so, of which just over half was paid to the Ministry of Works, to meet expenses of acquisition and management, and just under half for actual properties …
In the three previous years, the Land Fund had spent more than £2·5 million, including such tremendous items as the works of art acquired from Chatsworth House (worth £1,025,000 …) Hardwick Hall and chattels (£360,000 between them) …
It is an odd thing that the Land Fund began to be really active only when its original capital had been drastically cut down. Lord Dalton set it up with a capital of £50 million, ostensibly with the idea that it might be used among other things for sustaining the national parks, then still unborn. For reasons never explained, no arrangement was made in the National Parks Act for carrying out this purpose, and the national parks have suffered accordingly.
The Times, in a leading article on 28th March, said:
The presidential address to the annual council of the Ramblers' Association makes melancholy reading. In it Mr. Embleton chronicled the gradual disappointment of the hopes of great things which the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act of 1949 inspired. Such steps as the designation of ten

national parks is hardly negligible; nor is the complexity of the case-work… No discussion in this field can escape its subjective element. Moreover, as the last annual report of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government emphasises, in a conspicuously defensive passage, the public has little means of knowing the extent to which projects are stopped or abandoned at the outset as incompatible with the purposes of the National Parks Act. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the disappointment is largely justified.
It goes on to say that the National Parks Commission shares no blame for that. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to consider carefully with the Minister those leading articles from two of our leading daily newspapers.
The Minister says that he is anxious to help, and I believe that he is. I think sometimes, however, that Conservative principles rather hamper him in his good intentions. Grants up to 75 per cent. are available, but conflicts arise between the Treasury and local authorities about how much each should bear. I say "the Treasury", because undoubtedly it is the Treasury which gives the money to the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
This is an inescapable dilemma. The more that is spent by the local authorities, the greater is the rate burden. The less that is spent out of the rates, the less is the Government grant. I am informed that on 21st February, the day before my Motion was to be debated in the House of Commons, the Finance Committee of the Devon County Council cut the estimate for the Dartmoor National Park Committee by £2,000. That meant a loss of £6,000 of Government grant. The result was that in the coming year, the Park Committee will have £8,000 less to spend than it would have had had the item of £2,000 not been struck out of its budget by the finance committee of the county council. Of that £8,000, £5,000 would have been allocated to save land from afforestation and £3,000 for combating disfigurements in the park. This is a perfect example of the failure of dual financial responsibility concerning the National Parks.
What it amounts to is that the development and preservation of the National Parks is dependent upon the finance committee of the county council concerned. I am not blaming the finance committees. Every one of us who has had anything to do with county council


budgets, as I have done, will realise the great pressure which comes upon finance committees at this time of year, particularly when, as almost inevitably is the case, the rate has to be raised.
These National Parks are for the whole nation. I suggest that they should be financed nationally. I believe that I am correct in saying that the Royal Parks in London, which are open to the public of the world, are financed by the Government. Although Westminster Borough, in which, I suppose, St. James's Park and Green Park lie, is probably one of the wealthiest local authorities, the Minister does not tell Westminster Borough Council that it must pay a share of the upkeep of these parks. They are National Parks. None of us objects to them being financed nationally. I do, however, suggest that this is a good precedent for financing the National Parks. I expect that the cost of the upkeep of St. James's Park alone would be sufficient to finance all the National Parks in the country. I must, however, make it clear that I do not want any cutting down of expenditure on the Royal Parks. The National Parks require considerably more money spent upon their upkeep and maintenance. The nation should provide it.
One of the problems in the National Parks is the collection of litter. I agree that the Minister has done everything he can to provide penalties for people who throw litter about. Public opinion has been roused to the menace of litter in the countryside, and in many places the local authorities are doing a fine job by providing waste paper baskets and the like.
The Northumberland National Park Committee has set a fine example by providing for a system of wardens. It is not a costly affair and I hope that the other National Park Committees will be able to emulate the Northumberland example. I am not asking the Parliamentary Secretary for a decision this afternoon. Obviously, these are big points of policy, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will consider carefully what I have said.
Under Section 11 of the Act, the park committees have wide discretion, but, frustrated as they are by lack of finance, what can they do? They cannot embark upon any great schemes of expansion for the Parks, because this would be too

costly and might in turn result in an increase in the local rate. The local people would say, "Dartmoor belongs to the people of Devon, not to the nation. Why should we have to pay an extra rate to keep Dartmoor National Park going?" That is a very human outlook.
I should like to quote from some speeches which are referred to in the Tenth Report of the National Parks Commission for the year ended 30th September, 1959.
Lord Strang in opening the Bakewell Conference of park planning authorities on 28th May, 1959, said:
Speaking in 1945, Lord Birkett said that he felt assured that when National Parks are established … the fairest places in these islands will be secure from all assault, arising either from accident or design. And I notice that, in a recent letter to The Times, a group of Members of Parliament have said that if a certain area in which they were particularly interested could be made into a National Park, this would serve to preserve it unspoiled for posterity.
The present Minister of Housing and Local Government, replying to that debate, said that, however much trouble was taken over a Bill as it was going through Parliament, weaknesses large or small tended to come to light once it was in operation. There were some provisions of the 1949 National Parks Act that, he said, he would like to see amended. He went on to say:
Before any fresh Government legislation is brought forward to amend the 1949 Act, I believe that the nation has got to think out more clearly than ever what exactly it wants to make of National Parks.
Two years have passed since the Minister said that, and I really think that the time has come when we might expect him to do something in the way of introducing fresh legislation to amend the 1949 Act in the ways which are necessary. One of the ways, I suggest, is that all development in National Parks, including afforestation, should be brought under proper planning control.
On 14th July, 1952, the present Prime Minister, when he was Minister of Housing and Local Government, in a debate in this House said that in National Parks amenity and access should have prior claim. Last night we had a debate on afforestation in National Parks. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will forgive me for saying that I am very disappointed with his reply to the debate.
Every Government Department seems to be brushing off this decision on Economic Forestry, Ltd. to plant trees on High House Moor in Dartmoor National Park. I had an example of this brushing off from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture this morning. This time the Dartmoor National Park Committee is implacably opposed to that planting. The answer given is that this land was bought before the temporary agreement came into operation in January, but surely Economic Forestry, Ltd. ought to pay some regard to the feelings of the people of the country and not just stand pat on its property rights?
The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government last night referred to the fact that he himself was once interested in forestry. I would commend to him a book, "Profitable Forestry" by Lord Bolton, which he placed in the Library in 1956. I think he said—I have not checked it this morning—that really forestry should be profitable even without a Government subsidy, but last year the Forestry Commission paid out, I think, the sum of £1,379,000 in grants to private woodlands. There are special maintenance grants and special concessions under death duties for woodlands, and yet Economic Forestry, Ltd. seems to be buying, or proposing to buy, hundreds of thousands of acres of land some of which is in National Parks and to be financed to some extent out of rebates of taxation. I am afraid that I am not sufficient of an expert in that kind of practice to know just how it is done.
Then there is the question of Government Department's use of National Parks. I have put a series of Questions to Service Ministers, and to the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Science recently, because I was informed that the National Parks Commission had not been consulted by the Atomic Energy Authority when it wanted to put some listening posts on Northern Dartmoor. In a reply which I got from the Parliamentary Secretary a couple of days ago he said that his Department had contacted the Dartmoor National Park Committee and then had told the National Parks Commission by telephone. Surely, a body of the standing of the National Parks Commission, set

up by this House to administer the National Parks, ought to be treated in a better way than that by civil servants. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government will pass on to his colleague what I am saying, because I am sure that this House will not tolerate these things being dealt with in this way.
I am bound to say that of all the replies I got from the Service Ministers I was most pleased with that from the Secretary of State for Air. He was extremely good, and I know that I owe a debt to that Department because some years ago it stopped the project which it had for putting a radar mast on Great Links Tor on Northern Dartmoor.
There is much more that I should like to say on this subject, because the National Parks and the countryside generally mean a lot to me. It is a great national heritage, and I hope that the Minister will rise to the occasion and say that he and his hon. and right hon. Friends will do what they can to make the National Parks a national responsibility. Let the Parks by all means carry on in a normal way, but let the finance for them be provided through the National Land Fund.

2.57 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Worsley: I intervene only very briefly in this interesting debate. I hope that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) will not think I am speechless with rage with him. It is only that my voice is affected by a heavy cold. I listened with great interest to the hon. Member, and he does great service in bringing up for debate today this subject which is too rarely debated in this House; but I must say that there are many matters on which I disagree with him. I am fortunate in that my constituency is near the Yorkshire Dales National Park and in that the North Yorkshire Moors National Park is near my home. I know both National Parks well, and I value them.
I am inclined to think that the hon. Member does not pay enough attention to the interests and concerns of the people who live in and around the National Parks. I very much regret that he should suggest that the whole of the financial responsibility should rest upon the Government. It seems to me that the


National Parks should reflect local interests as well as serve the national interest. It was never suggested when the National Parks were set up that they should be merely wildernesses.

Mr. Hayman: I quite agree with that, but some of the parks are wilderness, and I hope that no motor car will ever get into them.

Mr. Worsley: I am grateful to the hon. Member, but I thought he was rather suggesting that in one passage of his speech, but I am glad that I carry him with me in stating that these areas should be places where development of agriculture and forestry can take place and where people can work. They should not be fossilised and places for urban populations only to visit. That is my reason for hoping that my hon. Friend will not go any way towards meeting the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne in his suggestion that all finance should be national.
I want to see in the National Parks maximum access and maximum amenity, as was quoted from the words of the Prime Minister, but as well as that I want to see in them employment and vigorous local development. I do not want to see the sort of attitude that assumes that one comes up to a stone pillar and beyond that the ordinary development of the countryside is ended. I hope that my hon. Friend will not meet the hon. Member on this question of central finance. If he does so this will be the thin end of the wedge for a type of fossilising policy which I deprecate.

3.1 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir K. Joseph): Enthusiasts in this House often act as public benefactors and the hon. Member for Falmouth and Cam-borne (Mr. Hayman) is a real enthusiast for the subject he has raised today, but there is the trouble with enthusiasts that no answer can ever satisfy them, and I shall be surprised if what I have to say will leave the hon. Member entirely satisfied.
Before dealing with the detail of what the hon. Member said and in particular with National Parks, I should like to deny categorically one assertion that the hon. Member made. He said the Government as a whole had no real en-

thusiasm for preserving the landscape beauty of this country. It is not often enough and generally enough and widely enough appreciated how much has been achieved in the way that the hon. Member would like.
Six per cent. of the total acreage of England and Wales is in the green belts. No one thinks that all green belts are a beautiful landscape but they are subject to a very tight development control. In addition to that, 5 per cent. of the acreage is in areas of outstanding national beauty and subject to the tightest form of development control. On top of that 9 per cent. of the acreage is in National Parks. This makes a total of nearly 20 per cent. of the acreage subject to the tightest form of development control, and this in a country throbbing with full employment and activity. I hope that the hon. Member and the public will realise that a great deal is being done to preserve as inviolate as is possible, with full life within the area, a large proportion of our national inheritance of beauty.

Mr. Hayman: I appreciate the good work that the Minister has done in the green belts.

Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful to the hon. Member.
The hon. Member has done a real service to the National Parks in raising the subject today, because it is good from time to time to look at the position that we have reached in National Parks administration. Now, eleven years after the Act came into force, anyone reading the Annual Reports, and the eleventh Report came out only a few weeks ago, will realise how much work is done by the National Parks Commission and committees in effecting, judging and assessing and controlling development that occurs, or might occur but for their vigilant care, in the National Parks.
Members and staff of the Commission spend a great deal of their time on actual field work, and I am sure the House would wish to pay tribute to the thoroughness and skill they devote to their task. National Park authorities pay close heed to detail and do their best to ensure that such development as occurs is in harmony with the landscape.
I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. Worsley) that some development is


bound to occur in the National Parks. It was never the intention that they should be turned into what he called fossilised areas and what I would call museums. Museums tend to be dead records of the past but National Parks are to some extent only beautiful because they are living and vital and they change as nature changes. That is why there must be employment in them and why people in and around them should continue to make full use of them.
There is tremendous criticism, however, when major development has to be allowed. Sometimes a decision has to be taken in the national interest to site something in a National Park when everyone wishes that it might be sited elsewhere but it cannot for technical or other reasons. But it would be wrong to allow our view of National Parks to be obscured by these cases however much publicity they achieve. Let us reflect on the credit side—the unspectacular daily achievements which are given no publicity. The efforts towards the enhancement and preservation of the Parks are much evidenced in the Report which I hope hon. Members will find time to read.
Some authorities already give guidance to developers in these matters by way of publications, and others intend to do so in future. Meticulous attention to details in siting, materials and colour is an important aspect of this development. It goes on all the time but many people are unaware of it because it is so unglamorous and unspectacular.
The hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne quoted one thing with what I thought was exaggeration. This was the case of the research facilities required by the Atomic Energy Authority on Dartmoor for seismic tests in connection with the Geneva Conference on the banning of nuclear tests. One would think from listening to the hon. Member that we were dealing here with a major disruption of a National Park. In fact, as I think the hon. Member knows, what is at issue is about seven small temporary pits each one not much bigger than the Dispatch Box in this House. They are scattered over a length of two miles and are to be used for a very few hours and for very few weeks in each year. They contain delicate

recording instruments and they will be manned only when the instruments are in use. They will be protected when they are not being manned.
They are certainly temporary facilities. They serve a great national purpose. They cannot be said to disrupt the natural beauty of the area. The local Park Committee has no objection to the proposal to place them there. Had the committee had any objection it would naturally have consulted the National Parks Commission, as is the normal drill. The Authority took steps to inform the Commission of what was proposed and my right hon. Friend has had no complaint from the Commission of any discourtesy to it. There cannot be a complete ban on all activity in National Parks, however suitable and however much those activities serve the national interest.
It has been said that the development control powers given to the authorities should include control over forestry. I hope that the hon. Member understands that my right hon. Friend believes that voluntary agreement should be given a fair trial. The Economic Forestry Group is not standing pat on its legal rights in the case of land acquired before the voluntary agreement. In the case of High House Moor it is in consultation, as is not required under the voluntary agreement, with the planning authority. The hon. Member is grossly exaggerating the planting proposals of the Economic Forestry Group as they might affect the National Parks. I hope that the public generally will be reassured by the pamphlet which is being produced by the Economic Forestry Group. Because of lack of time I have had to deal with this matter as it were in shorthand, but I am sure that hon. Members will understand my reference.
I turn now to the question of how the Government have played their part in the care of National Parks. I was glad that the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne paid tribute to my right hon. Friend who takes his responsibilities in connection with the Parks extremely seriously. He has personally visited all but one of them and he has found it possible and right to support the Park planning authorities in nearly every one of the appeals to him.
Reference has been made to The Times and the Guardian and the speech by Mr. Embleton at the recent Ramblers' Conference. Perhaps these leaders in responsible papers derive some of their tone from earlier and more romantic conceptions of what National Parks should be. The Hobhouse Committee Report envisaged a much more high-powered body than we have today. It envisaged a Commission which would have power to spend money in acquiring land, which would promote many activities in the National Parks, and which would have a paid staff for the purpose.
In fact, the Act passed by Parliament in 1949, under a Labour Government, reflected a much more modified version of the National Parks than was envisaged by the Hobhouse Committee. The National Parks Commission is, in fact, under the 1949 Act largely advisory. Only the Chairman and the Vice-Chairman are paid. The Commission has no power to acquire land, and the National Parks are, in fact, managed by local planning authorities with no Exchequer assistance for administrative expenses.
As has been made plain, there are 75 per cent. Exchequer grants—from the taxpayer—in respect of certain activities under the Act, such as car parks, hostels, tree planting, wardens' services over access land, and clearance of derelict sites. My right hon. Friend and his predecessors have not since the days of the credit squeeze failed to approve a single eligible scheme which has been put forward for grant purposes.
It is true, as the hon. Gentleman said, that the local ratepayers have to find £1 for every £3 found by the taxpayers. But if the local ratepayers are in a poor area, they get rate deficiency grants to help them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley stressed, if there is any local pride surely the local ratepayers should be only too glad to pay something towards the inheritance which they above all citizens in this country can enjoy. I am sure that the local ratepayers will not grudge the £1 that draws £3 from the taxpayers.
There is no truth in the hon. Member's suggestion that the Treasury is difficult in meeting expenditure under the Act. My right hon. Friend has gladly agreed to the extension of wardens' ser-

vices in certain Parks, and again with 75 per cent. Exchequer aid. Activities in the Parks promoted by voluntary bodies, and Park centres, of which the Hobhouse Committee speaks, are not unthinkable under the present system, given bigger initiative by the authorities.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of access. A good deal more access to open country has been provided under the Act, particularly in the Peak District, in agreement with land owners; and, in other parts of the country, land owners are coming more and more to accept the National Parks idea of access.
People talk of the Parks being held up through lack of Exchequer aid. It is true that aid in administrative expenditure would help authorities to employ more staff and do more things—I do not deny it—but, beyond that, the suggestions are vague. Others have suggested that there should be more public conveniences and more litter bins. The hon. Gentleman says that under the present arrangements one of the northern Parks is going in for what he admires in the way of litter bins collections and information centres, which are in any case now to be financed out of the increased funds made available for the purpose and are already to some extent practicable.
What my right hon. Friend would welcome is examples of projects which are frustrated by lack of grant now. Also, it is, felt that more use might be made of existing grants at the moment. Estimates of expenditure are already increasing considerably, but the hon. Gentleman must understand that most of the money that the taxpayers will find towards the extra expenditure will go to a few Park authorities which have had the initiative and vigour to think up schemes and put to good purpose the taxpayers' money which is available.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the National Land Fund. Surely it is now generally agreed that direct Parliamentary grant and not discretionary payments from some other fund is the right way to finance public schemes. The hon. Gentleman suggested—there have been very wide suggestions to this effect—that there should be amending legislation. The hon. Gentleman referred to the conference at Bakewell. At that conference my right hon. Friend said that he was


studying suggestions made for amendment and that he was not opposed to the idea of amending legislation. My right hon. Friend has promised to look at all the proposals made to him, and at present he is seeking more information from Park authorities and the National Parks Commission to help in this review.
My right hon. Friend is extremely keen about improving conditions for the public in the National Parks. There is absolutely no complacency about this. As pointed out in my right hon. Friend's last Annual Report, the public have little means of knowing the extent to which projects are stopped, abandoned or discarded at the outset as incompatible with the purposes of the National Parks Act.
This unseen work is going on all the time. There is a feeling in some quarters that there is not as much to show after eleven years of the National Parks Act as some would wish, that the conception should be a more positive one to catch the imagination of the public and that the way to achieve it is for the Government to spend more money on the Parks. I hope I have shown that this is not altogether true and that there is very much more that can be done by the individual Parks committees which would now receive Exchequer aid. I think it may well be that the time has come to extend the legislative framework in some ways, and although we are at present looking at this, and although more expenditure might help in some ways, it cannot be the only answer. Vigilance, effective administration and an imaginative approach must also play a very important part.
I think that the whole House must be indebted to the hon. Member for having raised this important subject today.

KENYA (LAND)

3.15 p.m.

Mr. Philip Goodhart: At the beginning of this short Adjournment debate, I should like to make it clear that I have no property in Kenya and that, however rosy a picture my hon. Friend paints in winding up this debate, I have no intention of investing in that country, nor have I any close relatives there. However, I have friends of all three races in Kenya. This afternoon I

wish to concentrate my remarks on the future of the British farming community in that area.
Exactly one year ago I was in Kenya on a trip that took me briefly to the Belgian Congo and also to all the British territories that bordered on the then Belgian Congo. I was deeply interested in the possible future of that country, and I discussed this problem with knowledgeable men wherever I went. Soon after my return I stated in public, as I have often done in private, that tens of thousands of Africans would die before the end of 1960 as a result of political upheaval in the Congo.
It is interesting to note that the Belgian Embassy sent an official letter to the Conservative Central Office when I made this statement, saying it was regrettable that I did not know what I was talking about. I do not mention this incident to try to prove that I was right and to show that the Belgian officials were tragically wrong. I do it to make plain that I do not speak lightly or frivolously when I say that Kenya contains all the ingredients of another and even bloodier Congo. The principal ingredients would remain in Kenya even if the entire British community there were spirited away overnight.
What are these ingredients? First, there is the strong feeling of tribalism—of tribal separatism. The flame of tribalism seems to flicker and splutter at times. I welcome the fact that at the last election Mr. Mboya, standing in Nairobi, was elected, although he is a Luo, by an overwhelmingly Kikuyu electorate. But the separatist influence is strong, and any British statesman who ignores the patchwork problems of tribalism will, if I may paraphrase a current expression, be too stupid by half.
Then there is the shortage of trained Africans in responsible positions. We can look with pride at the training given to Africans in responsible positions in West Africa. The position of Kenya is not comparable to that of West Africa, but bears a closer resemblance to the position in the Belgian Congo just before independence and chaos.
It is true that there is an equal short age of trained Africans for responsible positions in Tanganyika at the moment, but the outlook is infinitely better there


than in Kenya. In Kenya, unlike Tanganyika, we have a generation of political leaders who believe that extreme and inflammatory statements are the key to success. I have no hesitation in saying that the British farming community in Kenya lives at the moment in a cauldron that is bubbling and could soon boil over.
We must, therefore, consider our obligations to that community. Here we must take note of the fact that I am talking about farmers. In Kenya a merchant who sells cars, whisky, tractors or tooth brushes, has much of his capital tied up in goods which, if the worst came to the worst, could be transported elsewhere. The lawyer, the doctor and the teacher provide services which are of value to all communities, and if they wish to move they can take their expertise and knowledge with them. The civil servants have their pension and compensation scheme. But the British farmer has his capital invested in property which cannot be moved and which is a bone of bitter political contention.
The Colonial Office is fond of repeating the doctrine laid down in the recent Royal Commission which considered the problem of land in East Africa—that all land in that area must be treated as an economic asset. The fact is that in Kenya, as elsewhere, economic doctrine plays second fiddle to political doctrine. Any British statesman who does not recognise the fact that many Africans covet the land now owned by British farmers is, once again, too stupid by half.
What is our obligation to the British farming community in Kenya? First, through ex-Service resettlement schemes and Government sponsored farm development programmes, a sizeable proportion of the community was directly encouraged to go to Kenya. Secondly, we have had various statements by responsible British Ministers declaring that we would create a society in which the community could maintain its existence. We need go no further back than the 22nd April, 1959, when Viscount Boyd, who was then Secretary of State for the Colonies, replied to another Adjournment debate. Discussing the conditions in which we should eventually be able to hand over Kenya to full independence with a good conscience, he said:

What are those conditions? First, there must be in the territory as a whole a sufficient understanding of parliamentary institutions, and sufficient sense of responsibility in public affairs, to hold out a reasonable prospect that parliamentary institutions, representative of the people, will produce responsible government and not chaos or dictatorship. Self-government, I think we would all agree, is but a mockery if it is purchased at the expense of personal freedom.
Secondly, there must have been established a sufficient measure of understanding and co-operation between the various communities who have made their homes in Kenya to ensure mutual tolerance and acceptance by all of the right of each to remain in Kenya and continue to play a part in the public as well as the economic life of the country.
Thirdly—and this is closely linked with both the first and the second—there must be a reasonable prospect that any Government to which Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom surrender their responsibilities will be able to ensure for the people of Kenya a fair standard of living in an expanding economy. This they will only be able to do if they can maintain the confidence of investors in a country which, not having great mineral resources, is particularly dependant on the continued introduction of capital and skill. Without that capital and skill they cannot hope for a secure economic future or for the maintenance of the standards of living to which its people of all races have attained, let alone that improvement of the standards of the great majority that we all want to bring about.
Fourthly, a competent and experienced Civil Service is an essential part of political institutions if these are to function successfully for the benefit of the people as a whole."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd April, 1959; Vol. 604, c. 564–5.]
I have quoted the former Colonial Secretary at length because it seems to me that the pledge—and I take it to be a pledge—given on that occasion, not quite two years ago, is of fundamental importance. Her Majesty's Government have played their part, as far as the fourth proviso is concerned, with the introduction of the overseas service scheme. But let us look for a moment at the other provisos.
On 22nd April, 1959, the economic development of Kenya was going forward swiftly. At the same time, Mr. Michael Blundell had recently formed his multi-racial New Kenya Party, and there were genuine hopes that a new spirit of liberalism could be nurtured. There seemed, despite the clouds, a real prospect that multi-racialism could flourish.
Since then, the situation has deteriorated. The present jousting over the


creation of a Kenya Government does not give us much confidence that the firm roots of Parliamentary democracy have been laid. The continued fever of the Kenyatter cult does not augur well for the future of the rule of law. Since April, 1959, the speeches of African nationalist leaders have seemed to grow more and not less extreme. Even the most moderate speeches made by the leaders of the Kenya-Africa National Union, the largest party in Kenyan politics, suggest that at best the British community will only temporarily be tolerated as bystanders. Is that what the then Colonial Secretary had in mind in his speech on 22nd April, 1959?
Of course the deterioration in the political situation has led to an equally rapid deterioration in the economic scene. Let us hope that the worst is over. No doubt the British and Asian communities have already transferred their liquid assets out of the country, so that the flow of capital outwards must have already declined to a trickle. Indeed, I am told that the importation of artificial fertilisers into Kenya is now going on at a very high level. That is welcome news, but I hope that my hon. Friend will not make too much of it, or he will become the butt of some fairly crude jokes in Kenya.
I want now to quote from a letter which I have received from a Kenya politician of British stock who was recently elected to the Legislative Council with a large majority—one might almost call it an overwhelming majority—made up for the most part of African votes. He is by no means a supporter of Sir Ferdinand Cavendish Bentinck's party, and he writes as follows:
In my canvassing amongst my African constituents, I really have been appalled at the emotionalism, racialism, and almost atavistic outlook of many of them. The whole theory of H.M.G.'s transfer of responsibility in Kenya is that she will be able to create the right conditions. This may take much longer than is possible in modern conditions. If H.M.G. holds up the advance of the country because the settler is here, we shall incur the enmity and bitterness of the African. If, on the other hand, H.M.G. allows the advance to go forward before the right conditions as between race and race have been created, she may well jettison the settler for whom she is responsible.
There are three alternatives before Her Majesty's Government at the moment. The first is that we can hand

over power before the conditions outlined on 22nd April, 1959, have become a reality. We can then say to the British farmers in Kenya, "We are sorry, but we have put up some money for land development and tried to get some capital from the International Bank as well. If you were not quick enough to get your hands on some of this cash while it was going round, that is just too bad. Goodbye and good luck." That would be cheap. It would also be dishonourable, and I would find it difficult to support such a policy and I do not believe that it would be supported by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary or my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary.
The second alternative is to retain executive power in Kenya until the conditions laid down on 22nd April, 1959, are genuinely fulfilled. That means that in all probability we would have to retain power until a new generation of moderate leaders arose. In fact we might have to retain power indefinitely, and it is not my intention to argue this afternoon whether we should or should not follow that course. Rightly or wrongly, I am convinced that Her Majesty's Government will not stay in Kenya until it is possible to tell whether the conditions of the 1959 statement have been genuinely fulfilled.
Then there is a third alternative. We can say clearly and fairly at this moment that we guarantee that the British farming community will not suffer ruin if the worst comes to the worst. As the Economist said on 4th March when discussing the Colonial Secretary's efforts to support the British farming community:
But he has not gone far enough: the debt of honour, in case Kenya sunders or collapses, should be acknowledged straightforwardly now.
I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to acknowledge that debt of honour now. It should not be all that difficult, because I understand that some representatives of the Kenya National Farmers' Union in fact believe that they have already had such a pledge from the Colonial Secretary.
How should we honour this pledge? There are two basic points which must be borne in mind. First, while we have an obligation to protect these farmers from ruin, we do not have an obligation to protect them from all loss. After all, many of my constituents who bought


War Loan with the encouragement of the Government have suffered losses which they can ill afford. If all those who suffer loss because of taking the Government's advice are to be protected, I suggest that my constituents who bought War Loan have an even more direct claim than the British farming community in Kenya.
Secondly, we must not devise a scheme which will encourage British farmers to leave prematurely. The economy of Kenya is to a large extent dependent on the continued presence of the British farming community, and a rush to the coast would precipitate a major economic crisis and a breakdown of such social services as exists and endanger the entire educational programme.
At the same time, it would be wrong to encourage the whole British farming community to stay. I know many tough young men who should be able to survive whatever happens. They know the African. They have worked with him throughout their lives. Even if law and order were to break down, they should be able to command a high price as guerilla leaders.
At the other end of the scale however, there is a group—perhaps 15 per cent. or 20 per cent, or a little more—of the British farming community which cannot adapt itself to the increasing Africanisation of Kenya life. There is no point in giving these people lectures about the virtues of multi-racialism. They cannot adapt themselves to this change, and if they feel that they are compelled to stay in a Kenya which they have come to fear and to detest they will inevitably add further poison to the atmosphere.
Can those people leave at the present moment? It would be wrong to suggest that there is no market for land in Kenya at the moment. I have recently seen details of about 50 farms or sizeable blocks of farmland which have recently changed hands, or are about to change hands. A considerable number of these could be described as internal transactions of the Settlement Board. Some of the other farms seem to have been sold at reasonable prices, though it is interesting to note that the maximum price offered per acre gross in these 50 transactions only just comes above the £14·35 per acre, which my hon. Friend

said yesterday was the average price paid when the Government were taking over land in Kenya in the last month or two for their development programme, but some of the land has been changing hands for as little as 30s. an acre.
While some farms have changed hands at substantial sums, one farm of which I know near Mweiga fetched less than one-third of the walk-in walk-out price paid in 1951. At the moment there are about six farmers in Kenya who are making every effort to secure as much land as they can. Good luck to them. But I suggest that their presence does not make the Kenya land market sufficiently strong to cope with those who wish to leave.
How much would the guarantee cost? In a leading article on 4th March the Economist, talking about the guarantee, said:
In cash terms, this could mean something around the price of the Blue Streak rocket spent on rescuing 5,000 farmers from the White Highlands.
That figure is a rather high estimate.
The Colonial Office has arguments against promising this. One is its fear of setting a precedent in other territories. But Kenya is the only really sizeable settled white farming community in East and central Africa. Tanganyika is well set; there are very few people in a comparable situation in Nyasaland; in Northern Rhodesia the whites are mostly in mining; and Southern Rhodesia has long made its own decisions … if there is real belief in the future of a non-racial Kenya—and there is reason for such belief—then there would be no harm in giving a qualified option to sell out to the British Government between, say, 1963 and 1968. The farmers would then be able to stay and see how the new Kenya treated them, and still have a security at their back. It could then be hoped that the debt would not have to be paid.
The Economist seems to suggest giving farmers a 100 per cent. valuation on their farms. I would not go so far as that, and the cost would therefore be considerably less. To my mind what is needed is an avowedly unattractive long-term compensation scheme, backed from Britain by the British Government.
I do not ask the Under-Secretary to commit himself to any scheme this afternoon. I have made my own proposals, which the Colonial Secretary has been good enough to discuss with me, not unsympathetically. I will not go into great detail about them, but briefly my proposals are, first, that the farms in the so-called White Highlands should be


objectively valued as quickly as possible. This is possible under schemes developed by the Government and by the National Farmers' Union on a basis of past yields of the farm. I suggest that, as a start, we should offer to purchase the farms offered for sale at 60 per cent. of their valuation. The offer would be guaranteed to stay open for ten years, and in the course of that period we would pay a rising percentage on the valuation, and adjust the valuation from time to time.
The scheme would be provided by a small British Government corporation, which would be responsible for providing managers for the farms that were taken over. Alternatively, or in addition, the land that had been taken over could be leased out to its former owners or to neighbouring farmers. In the long term this land would be re-sold to the continuation of the present development scheme for handing over to African yeomen farmers. Indeed, the greater the efforts put behind the present developments, projects and programmes, the more practical my proposals would become.
I do not intend to go into any detail of the scheme this afternoon because I do not want my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State to feel himself called upon to prove in detail that my scheme is impracticable. It would be embarrassing for the Government when they have to implement some kind of scheme such as I have suggested.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State on the birth of another child. When it comes to the size of family, he is catching up with me very fast. When it comes to views about the granting of public guarantees to the British farming community in Kenya, I hope that he will also catch up with me fast and will go a long way to meet the suggestions which I have made this afternoon, because one thing to my mind is certain—that neither the British Commonwealth nor the Africans can afford to see in Kenya the sort of chaos which broke out in the Congo.

3.46 p.m.

Mr. G. M. Thomson: The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) has performed a useful service in raising this subject this afternoon. He has gone very widely not only into

land policy, but also into political prospects in Kenya, and in the few minutes which I have I do not wish to follow him over the whole field. I do not share his somewhat gloomy fears about the political future in Kenya and I have greater trust perhaps than he has in the wisdom of his right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary, or perhaps I should say his right hon. Friend's powers of survival in the Government.
I thought that the elections in Kenya were in many ways a model of smoothness, and, certainly, they gave the lie to many fears which had been expressed by some people in Central Africa. On the whole, the elections seemed to be about as peaceful as those which take place in Beckenham, or even in Dundee. I agree that developments since then have had their disappointments, but I remain an optimist about the political future in Kenya. I feel, however, that more fundamental and in some ways more prickly are the problems associated with land in Kenya and that it is, therefore, important for us to deal with them.
I believe that the continued presence of a substantial European agriculture is very much in the interests of a prosperous Kenya and in the interests of the African majority there. At present, I understand, 87 per cent. of Kenya's exports come from European agriculture, and I feel that any changes in that respect can take place only fairly gradually. I also support the hon. Member's point of view that the Government have a moral obligation towards the European farmers there. Many of these settlers went to Kenya on the invitation of successive British Governments, and we certainly have a duty to look after them. I also agree with him that that does not mean that we have an obligation to finance a policy of scuttle.
It is a difficult matter to deal with, but we need a scheme from the Government which does not tempt too many of the European farmers to leave and encourages as many as possible of them to stay there and to continue to make their home in Kenya, where many of them have lived for a very long time. A number of schemes have been put forward, as the Under-Secretary knows. A scheme was put forward on behalf of the Kenya National Farmers' Union by Mr. P. D. Marrian a year or so ago:


an interesting scheme was put forward by Sir Ernest Vasey before he left Kenya; and a scheme was put forward by the Fabian Commonwealth Bureau, through Mr. T. F. Betts, of the Bureau which, I think, the Secretary of State looked at some time ago. I do not wish to give any views on the relative merits of any of these schemes even if I had the time to do so.
I make only a passing comment about the scheme of the hon. Member for Beckenham, which, no doubt, has some very interesting features. I thought perhaps that the price he was paying for the pessimism among the European settlers was rather high. I think that all the emphasis should be on encouraging as many people as possible to stay in Kenya, but I agree that if people will not resign themselves to the political realities in Kenya it might make the future of Kenya easier if they were not there.
The point which I want to make to the Under-Secretary is that any compensation scheme should be made to fit in with the overall agricultural planning of Kenya. In addition to the need for creating confidence among the European settlers, there is no lesser need for creating confidence about the agricultural future of Kenya among the Africans. In the long run, the best guarantee that can be given to Europeans to continue to farm in Kenya is that the Africans will feel that there is a prosperous future for them on their own land.
I would say, briefly, that the Government's agricultural policy towards African agriculture has quite the wrong emphasis. I think that it puts too much emphasis on the yeoman farmer scheme with a holding of about 50 acres and too little on family smallholdings. I think that the Government are being tempted by a will-o'-the-wisp to create a well-to-do African landed middle class. Perhaps they feel that, in due course, they will become back bencher African baronets in a future Conservative Kenya legislature.
The brute fact in Kenya is that there is an appalling land hunger, a landless proletariat created by the necessary process of land consolidation. There is the kind of unemployment situation revealed in the Dalgleish Report. There is a

per capita income for the African population of £12 per annum, and against that background, I think that greater emphasis should be put on family smallholdings backed by co-operative marketing.
As in other matters in East Africa, Tanganyika has shown the kind of thing that can be done. I refer the hon. Gentleman to the Kilimanjaro Native Co-operative Union and the Chagga coffee farmers as an example of the kind of thing that can be usefully given a prominent place in agricultural planning in Kenya.
I hope that the Secretary of State, when he comes back from his present visit to Eas Africa, will be able to concentrate more of his energy and ingenuity on the Kenya land problem. I hope that he will apply himself to seeing what can be done in the way of schemes which, on the one hand, will give a greater sense of security to the European farmers and, on the other, provide the Africans with a real promise of agricultural progress. If the Secretary of State can do this, I assure his hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham that, however ingenious the scheme is, we on this side of the House shall not say that it is too clever by half

3.54 p.m.

Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) for raising this subject, but I do not think that he has put a sufficient sense of urgency into it. At the moment, there is an outflow of capital from Kenya of approximately £1 million a month. As a result, the economy is undoubtedly grinding down. At the same time, there is a complete lack of confidence amongst the white farmers. As a result, absolutely no development is going on in the farming communities.
The lack of capital is outstanding. There is no money to speak of going into farming. The whole farming process amongst white farmers is at a standstill at the moment. Unless a method can be devised of very quickly restoring confidence to the people, their standards of farming and living will continue to fall.
What is much more important, not only to the white farmers but to the whole of Kenya, is that the value of the land itself will decline year by year. The


longer lack of capital and lack of development continue amongst the farming community, the more the value of the land will decline. Speaking as a farmer, I assure my hon. Friend that it takes a very long time to pull good land back into good production when it has been let go because of lack of confidence and lack of funds to get on with the job.
The white farmer cannot be blamed for not doing this, because he does not know what will happen from day to day. If a method such as that advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, or that mentioned by the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) could be thought over by the Government and introduced in the near future, or an indication given that something will be introduced in the near future, it would restore the confidence which is sadly lacking and do much for the future benefit of Kenya as a whole.

3.57 p.m

The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Hugh Fraser): Perhaps I may reply, Sir, by leave of the House. This has been a very interesting debate on what those of us with any experience of Africa will agree is probably the most vital of all questions in Africa, namely, the land. My hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) made an interesting contribution, and we are indebted to him. We are all agreed that our prime objective must be to make land in Kenya healthy and productive.
My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart), in his opening remarks, made an interesting reference to the fact that the import of fertiliser this year is probably higher than it has ever been. I do not want to base too much on these figures, but they show that development is not at a total standstill. There certainly is not a total standstill in sales. Referring to the figures mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham, the figures now being paid by the Government of Kenya, which are £14·35 on an average, are based on 1959 values.
I am sorry to mention these rather trivial points at this stage, but it is important to get this in the right perspective. Two factors which must be added to the political difficulties in Kenya are,

first, that Kenya has suffered from one of the longest droughts we have ever experienced and, secondly, the very considerable fall in certain commodity prices. For many primary commodities, 1961 prices are less than half—and in many instances much less than half—the prices which obtained at the time of the Korean boom in 1951. There are other influences at work.
It is only proper that we should take note of the other influences, but I do not want to stray from the main burden of my speech, which is to reply to the views and natural fears voiced by my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham. I thought that his speech was, as usual, able and lucid. He has put forward a possible solution to one aspect of this question, the restoration of confidence among European farmers. I will deal with his proposals later, but, first, I ought to try to sketch in some of the background to the whole question.
Before doing so, however, I wish to make absolutely clear that Her Majesty's Government fully understand how anxious are European farmers in Kenya about the future. All of us in Britain, whether or not we have close personal connections with Kenya—many of us have—must feel deeply anxious for our fellow countrymen who have made their homes there and in the process have contributed so much to the economy and wellbeing of the country as a whole. Therefore, there should be no doubt whatsoever about the policy of the British Government in Kenya.
As my right hon. Friend put it at the opening of the Lancaster House Conference, we have made clear that our aim for Kenya is twofold: first, to build a nation based on parliamentary institutions and enjoying responsible self-government; and, secondly, to achieve a general acceptance by all of the right of each community to remain in Kenya and play a part in public life. We are determined that these concepts will be made to work and we shall not be dissuaded by antiquated tribal or racial myths or reactionary shibboleths. We believe that all races have a contribution to make and economically none greater for the next decade than the European and especially the European farmer.
It may help if I give a few facts to demonstrate how great is this contribution. Kenya's gross domestic product in


1958 was nearly £210 million, towards which agriculture contributed £90 million. The total domestic export in 1958 was worth nearly £30 million. Of that, £25 million consisted of agricultural exports and of this £25 million about £20 million is estimated to have come from non-African agriculture. In other words, four-fifths of the agricultural exports were produced by Europeans who occupy land only one-fifth of the size of the land farmed by Africans. Those figures speak for themselves. But even with this achievement we cannot be blind to the fact that the attitude to land ownership is at the heart of many of the difficulties in Kenya.
Her Majesty's Government recognise their duty to bring about conditions in which, through the process of producing results in terms of increased individual and national prosperity, we can strip from the land the controversies and feelings of racial and tribal emotion and bitterness. That is why the tremendous strides made through the Swynnerton Plan for the intensification of African agriculture in the last five or six years are so important. I know that hon. Members who have seen the effect of the Swynnerton Plan will agree that the effects, certainly in the Kikuyu and the Jaluo country, has been fabulous in its importance. The African production of coffee has increased more than sixfold in this short period, and we are seeing a major transformation in the pattern of African agriculture through land consolidation, farm planning and the improvement of livestock and crops. There are now nearly 150,000 African farmers with registered titles to their land, and the development is continuing.
What does this signify to the European with whom we are particularly concerned this afternoon? I agree with the hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. G. M. Thomson) that the African contribution to land is complementary to the European and that the greater it becomes the greater the prosperity all round. Nothing is more conducive to general stability than prosperity throughout the whole country. In a country such as Kenya, where different races are living together, there is everything to be gained by the establishment on as wide a scale as possible of a common stake in the country and a common interest in increasing the

country's wealth, which, after all, for as long as we can see, must primarily depend on agriculture.
The old policy of reserving different areas of land in Kenya for different tribes and races arose from the natural conditions of the early time of conquest and occupation. This conception is now totally out of date. A clean break with this attitude was recommended after a thorough examination by the East African Royal Commission, which did such fine work between 1953 and 1955. The Commission's whole thesis was that the test of land needs for the occupation of land must give way to the test of land use, and that land must be regarded primarily in economic terms as an economic asset and not by its ability to relieve social and tribal sectional pressure.
This thesis was accepted by the Kenya Government, and in October, 1959, they published detailed proposals for putting into effect a non-racial policy towards land. Its aim is to ensure that the basis of tenure and management of all agricultural land is similar throughout Kenya so far as local economic and agronomic conditions permit. These proposals, as many people will be aware, became law at the end of 1960 and are a fundamental part of our policy to create in Kenya a non-racial society. It is against this whole background of Kenya's agricultural economy and a nonracial land policy that the Kenya Government's plans for land development and resettlement in the Kenya Highlands must be viewed.
The basis of the Kenya Government's plan is to secure the most economic use of the country's agricultural land. The land to be used for these schemes will, therefore, be underdeveloped land of relatively high potential. If poorer or fully-developed land were used, its subdivision into small plots for African farmers could not be justified on economic grounds. We shall do all we can to ensure that as much money as possible is made available for these schemes, for they are the most important practical expression of the new land policy and will produce concrete evidence that the exclusion of African farming from the White Highlands is a thing of the past.
The Kenya Government have prepared a detailed plan for an initial period ending in mid-1963 envisaging expenditure of between £8 million and £9 million. We have already agreed to undertake about £3·15 million in Exchequer loans. The colonial development and welfare grants are coming forward—that is another £400,000—and this very day the Ministers of Agriculture and Finance in Kenya are negotiating with the International Bank. In addition, there are hopes that we shall get further assistance from the West German Government and from other sources to advance Kenya's new development programme.
This scheme involves two sorts of farms—the yeoman 50-acre farm, and the peasant farm. These are not, as the hon. Member for Dundee, East suggested, an attempt to create an African middle-class. That, of course, already exists. A man like Harry Thuku, I suppose, is as well-off as many farmers in this country, and some of the land up at Embu and in the Kikuyu country, which is good coffee land, produces as good coffee as does the Chagga to which he referred.
This scheme is based on the necessity of dividing certain types of land in the White Highlands into the right economic units. As the House will be aware, a great deal of the White Highland land, even the best of that land, is inferior to the best Kikuyu or Jaluo land. It is, therefore, only in areas where the land is of particularly high value that one can have the right peasant size of unit which will produce as much, or almost as much, as some of the yeoman type farming.

Mr. Scott-Hopkins: I cannot understand how my hon. Friend can justify 50 acres as being an economic unit. Even in this country where we are highly mechanised and organised, and where our land is much more fertile, 50 acres is regarded as an unviable unit. Is my hon. Friend saying that in Kenya 50 acres will be a viable unit?

Mr. Fraser: Yes, Sir; in parts of Kenya five or six acres make a viable unit. If someone is producing, shall we say, 30 cwts. of coffee per acre, which some of these acres are, and the coffee is being sold at £800 a ton, as it was

at times during the coffee boom, the income can be very high. At that time, the income of some Africans with five or six acres was about £8,000 or £9,000 a year, on which little or no taxation was paid.
I really believe that these things have been well worked out by great agricultural experts. I can think of no greater experts on African agriculture than Mr. Swynnerton and his teams, and I am convinced that the units we have put forward are fully economic. Hon. Members who have been in Kenya will have seen the type of unit produced under the Swynnerton scheme, which is fully economic.
This process will involve the taking over of about 180,000 acres of land in the period we have set ourselves. This is the maximum acreage which, with the staff and resources available, can be subdivided for yeomen and peasant farmers. The matter of staff is of great importance. We do not want to divert too much of our staff, which is already fully employed in completing elements of the Swynnerton plan in other areas of African agriculture. We cannot go fast, I believe, without a decline in the standard of husbandry and consequent loss of productivity. To attempt settlement at this stage on a larger acreage might well be counter-productive.
I know that there has been anxiety about the scale of assistance, its scope, and how long it is likely to last. Although present plans cover only the initial period of two-and-a-half years, there is, of course, a considerable possibility that towards the end of the two-and-a-half years, or within the next year or so, we may find means to speed up the process. At the end, when the 180,000 acres have been completed, the Kenya Government's need for more money for the purpose of continuing the process will be looked at most readily by Her Majesty's Government. I can say, therefore, that, after this first bite has been taken, the process may well be a continuing one, and I trust that Parliament will vote the necessary moneys.
Having outlined the background to the problems of Kenya land and having stated what Her Majesty's Government are doing in the way of providing money for resettlement and development, I turn to the proposals which my hon. Friend


the Member for Beckenham has put before the House in broad outline and which he has put before my right hon. Friend and myself in some detail. I thank him for his courtesy in letting me have for consideration some of his ingenious schemes in addition to those submitted from other quarters which have been before us in the Colonial Office during the past few weeks.
My hon. Friend's argument is that Her Majesty's Government should initiate a comprehensive compensation scheme which would oblige the British Government to buy the land of any European farmer who wished to leave Kenya because he felt that the future was uncertain. This we cannot accept. The amount of compensation which my hon. Friend proposes would cover only a portion of the agreed value of the particular farm, and, from a financial point of view, it is less expensive than other schemes which have been put forward. It has other ingenious provisions which tend to levy a positive fine on those leaving early and provide a positive benefit to those who remain late. It is, however, still a compensation scheme and this, in the view of Her Majesty's Government, is the consideration on which it must be judged.
Our fundamental objection to any scheme which would oblige Her Majesty's Government or the Kenya Government to buy the farms of any non-African who wished to leave Kenya is that it would run directly contrary to the whole approach to the land problem in Kenya which I have described. A compensation scheme would emphasise the racial ownership of land, whereas our whole policy is that land should be regarded primarily in economic terms and as an economic asset. It would place this racial emphasis on land ownership at a time when it is important that all concerned should cease thinking in racial terms, particularly over this question.
The economic effects of a compensation scheme would be no less harmful. It would oblige the Kenya Government or Her Majesty's Government to buy land which they could not run themselves, having neither the staff nor the administrative organisation. They would probably not be able to find other tenants for it either quickly or easily. They could not use it for the resettlement of African farmers, since much of the

land concerned, would not be suitable for sub-division into viable and economic plots for small settlers. The net result would be that the land which the Kenya Government or Her Majesty's Government had bought would, in many cases, cease to be productive. This would have obvious and, perhaps, disastrous effects on the Kenya economy.
There are other difficulties in the way of a compensation scheme. As my hon. Friend has made clear, any scheme would have to be guaranteed for a specific period, certainly longer than the life of the present Parliament. For one thing, this would present some constitutional difficulties in the way of guaranteeing the necessary funds. In addition, the existence of a compensation scheme for farmers would make it very difficult for the Government to refuse to set up similar schemes for non-Africans in other businesses, professions or trades who felt that their future might be uncertain. This could not be limited to Kenya.
Although the British Government might guarantee that any compensation scheme would last for ten years, for example, most farmers would probably avail themselves of the opportunity to get out as soon as the scheme started, fearing that the supply of money might dry up later. This would seriously increase the financial burden on Her Majesty's Government and on the Kenya Government, but it would also have other effects. We must consider the overall duties of Her Majesty's Government in these matters.
I believe that our main duties in any Colony are threefold: to the people of the Colony as a whole; to our own kith and kin; and to the maintenance of law, order and orderly government. In present circumstances, a compensation scheme for European farmers in Kenya would, I believe, be against all these general interests. It would be likely to destroy the whole of the Colony's economy. It would leave behind it unmanageable agricultural deserts and would, while making it impossible for the more intrepid European to farm on, destroy for ever the conception of a society in which each individual, whatever his race, can develop his skills and talents to the full. If we cannot fulfil this conception, we shall betray the endeavours of the past whose fruits are


the considerable economic values and investments that we see in Kenya today.
I believe that there is little future either for Kenya or for the European farmer in what I might term the negative approach—the organised withdrawal of skill and capital. The policy of Her Majesty's Government is precisely the reverse of this, and rightly so. In stable Government and in expanding economy lies the greatest hope for all in Kenya, not least for those whose interests have been so ably portrayed by my hon. Friend this afternoon.

HOLIDAYS

4.20 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the subject of the spreading of annual holidays and the whole question of Bank Holidays. Last week, on 21st March, I asked the Prime Minister two Questions, Nos. 40 and 49. My first Question pointed out that we had less Bank Holidays than other European countries and asked for another each year in September. The second Question referred to the congestion at holiday centres in the weeks immediately before and immediately after August Bank Holiday and asked for consideration of the spreading of annual holidays by moving Bank Holidays which act as magnets for annual holidays.
The Prime Minister's reply—it was not an Answer—was characteristically Victorian, unimaginative and procrastinating. I say "unimaginative", for this is what he said:
nowadays people are not dependent on Bank Holidays alone for their periods of holiday and recreation.
The Prime Minister seemed to use that as an argument for not having Bank Holidays, clearly not understanding that a Bank Holiday is in addition to annual holidays.
Albania was one of the countries which I quoted as having more Bank Holidays than we do. I do not know how annual holidays are organised there But Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway and Sweden, for example, have a proper system of annual holidays, yet they recognise the impor-

tance of Bank Holidays and have more than we do.
I said that the Prime Minister was "proscrastinating". He said:
As for the question of spreading the holiday season over a wider period, that is being examined."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1961; Vol. 637, c. 202.]
It is thirteen months since we were told, on the last debate on the subject, that the problem was to be examined by a committee. That debate of February, 1960, has at least had one victory—that is, the extension of Summer Time—but what about the spreading of the holidays?
Let us first consider the peak load of holidays in July and August. Overcrowding is bad and is getting worse. Obviously, it is getting worse by volume, as anyone will understand. What is not appreciated generally is that it is not only getting worse by volume but that the percentage of people taking their holidays in July and August compared with the rest of the year is rising. The figures put out by the British Travel and Holidays Association show that in 1951, 64 per cent. of people who took holidays started them in July and August. By 1959, the percentage had risen to 68 per cent. At the same time, during those same years—and this is really distressing—the percentage of people beginning their main summer holidays in June had fallen, as had the proportion of people taking their main annual holidays in September. Therefore, the load is increasing not only in volume but in proportion. At this rate, in July and August in ten years' time, we shall have to queue for a ticket entitling us to an hour on the beach and in twenty years' time in those months there will be standing room only in the sea.
It was Bernard Shaw who said that a perpetual holiday was a good working definition of hell. If he came back in ten years' time he would have to revise that definition and say that perpetual hell was a good working definition of a holiday—in July and August.
What are some of the consequences of the holiday peak in July and August? The first obvious one is that so many people have their annual holiday in the summer month which has the worst possible weather. The records over the last


thirty years show that August has less sun and far more rain than June. Yet the proportion of people taking their holidays in June is going down and the proportion of those taking their holidays in August is rising.
Secondly, in these peak holiday months, accommodation is more expensive and more people have to pay higher prices. Thirdly, foreign tourists coming to this country are discouraged, because their picture of these islands is not of queues and diesel fumes and they are likely to be disappointed. It can be said, of course, that they have strange ideas about what this country is like. They visualise the countryside in August and they think of people in pink coats riding to hounds and picture the Dagenham Girl Pipers in attendance at the Tower of London and Morris dancers round every corner. They do have a romantic idea of our country and tend to be disappointed when they get here.
Ours is a small island, and it is congested, but we are making the problem so much worse for ourselves by not spreading the holidays just when we have an opportunity of building up an enormous and highly lucrative tourist industry. We have so much to offer to people from overseas, not only history and places with historical associations, but in the beauty of the countryside as well.
Tourism is beginning to be a very important part of our export trade. It is already bringing in £150 million a year. It is up last year 20 per cent. on the year before, and that year, 1959, was 10 per cent. up on 1958. Of these tourists 400,000 come from the United States. There is an interesting calculation which the British Travel and Holidays Association has made, that each one who comes by sea and comes in a British ship and stays a couple of weeks here contributes as much to our economy as if he bought a typical British car in the United States. Of the 1¾ million tourists who came to this country last year it is calculated that one-quarter of them spent some time at a seaside resort. This emphasises again the importance of spreading our holiday season which, by custom, is concentrated so much on the seaside resorts.
While I am arguing broadly against concentration of holidays and against discouraging foreigners from coming here, I must mention an important service to foreigners which we ought to render to

them if we are to encourage the tourist trade. East tourist town should have a greeter for tourists, someone who really welcomes the foreigners and encourages their questions; and each greeter should have an honorary assistant greeter at each hotel who goes out of his way to help tourists. When I say "foreigners" I mean people from abroad; not necessarily foreigners, but people from the Commonwealth as well.
I have myself more than once fulfilled the honorary rôle in my constituency, in Lincoln. I have acted as assistant greeter, when I have run into tourists coming to my constituency and given them information and so on I remember giving some information to a coachload of American negro Methodist ministers about the birthplace of John Wesley, which is not far from Lincoln. Later that year I got a Christmas card from Georgia. That in itself is not important, perhaps; but what was important was that it was addressed to me as "The Tourist Information Officer" care of the hotel at which I helped them. Clearly, they had expected to find somebody there who would be anxious to help them and tell them such things as the whereabouts of John Wesley's birthplace.
How do we spread annual holidays? The first difficulty is that we are working against custom and habit, particularly in the North and Midlands. I shall deal with only three suggestions, first, by staggering the trip or wakes weeks, second, by altering school holidays, third, by altering Bank Holidays. First, as to staggering the trip or wakes weeks in the Midlands and the northern cities. They tend to come at the end of July and the beginning of August.
Looking at this problem first of all from the regional point of view—and I use only Ministry of Labour figures—it will be seen that in the Midland region, which includes my constituency, 500 large firms close down for a complete week or two every year, and 470 of those close down in the last week of July or the first two weeks of August. If one looks at the problem from the point of industry as a whole, it will be found that 80 per cent. of the country's large engineering firms close down for a complete week or two and that three out of four of these firms close down in the last two weeks of July or the first week of August.
The city which I represent is an engineering city in the Midlands and therefore it will be seen why I am particularly concerned with this problem. My constituents, following the pattern of the industry and of that part of the country, take their annual holiday at the most crowded and most expensive time of the year and incidentally, so far as it is in August, they take their holiday when rain is more likely than at any other time in the summer.
So much for the problem of the trip weeks. The second way of spreading annual holidays is by altering the school holidays. A number of schemes have been suggested and have been discussed at great length in the House and elsewhere. I shall concentrate on only two points. I would draw the Minister's attention to an article in last week's Sunday Dispatch. Then I ask that steps be taken to encourage the reduction of Christmas and Easter school holidays by a total of between three and four weeks and the addition of these weeks to the beginning of the summer holidays. This would have the immediate effect of adding three or four weeks to the holiday season for people with families. Many other far more elaborate schemes have been suggested by different authorities, including the provision of four terms a year, but I should like earnest consideration given to the much simpler device that I have just mentioned.
Thirdly, there is the altering of Bank Holidays, or rather the changing of only one and the creating of one new one. I do not suggest that we should change Easter at all. After going into the matter a great deal in the past year or two, I am convinced that to try to change Easter brings up emotional and religious problems far deeper than any difficulties that a fixed Easter would solve. We have had 1,300 years of fixed Easter in this country and for the 600 years before that there was turmoil because no one could agree which day was Easter. We should therefore be thankful now that the day is fixed.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that the House passed the Easter Act, 1928, which is still on the Statute Book, enabling the Government to provide for a fixed Easter?

Mr. de Freitas: I am well aware of that, but I acquit every Government since then. As I have said, the problems involved and the religious issues raised would be far greater than any benefits derived from fixing the date of Easter. To illustrate the difficulty experienced before we had a fixed Easter, I might remind the House that in one of the years just before the Synod of 654 a king of Northumbria celebrated Easter on a certain day by feasting whilst in a different part of his palace his queen, under the guidance of some Kentish priest, was fasting because according to the priest the day was Palm Sunday—a difference of a week. It took 6 centuries before we were able to sort out Easter, and so let us leave well enough alone.
In the case of Whitsun I suggest that instead of having a Bank Holiday on the day after Whit-Sunday we have a Bank Holiday on the first or second Monday in June. The weather then is usually good. There is also every reason to expect that this Bank Holiday would also act as a magnet for annual holidays and that people would have their annual holidays from then on in June. They would then have a month with long daylight hours, good sun and usually a good spell of weather.
I would not suggest that the August Bank Holiday should be moved. It may be inconvenient. It certainly is a wet week-end to choose, and I am sure that if 70 years ago we had had meteorological records as we have today it is extremely unlikely that Sir John Lubbock would have proposed or the House would have accepted having a Bank Holiday then. Therefore, besides moving the Whitsun Bank Holiday to the first or second Monday in June, I suggest having a new Bank holiday on the first or second Monday in September.
I believe this would be good in itself. After all, we are the only country I know that has no holiday between the beginning of August and Christmas. It would be good in itself because we have fewer Bank Holidays than any other country. Also, it would act as a magnet for people to take their annual holidays around that time by suggesting September as a holiday month. Let us remember that so much of the taking of holidays is a habit, and if we can induce


people to break the habit of fixing their holidays around August Bank Holiday it would be a great success.
I gave the Minister details of a number of points that I would raise, and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) has some important observations, not necessarily in entire agreement with me, that he wants to make, and I wish to give him the chance. I trust that the Minister will reply to my points, and I would particularly ask him to tell us when we shall hear about the Inter Departmental Committee and whether its findings are to be made public. When are we to be told about it?
I think we can say that our debate last year was a success in that it really has had some influence, I have reason to believe, on the extension of Summer Time. But what about the spread-over of holidays? The continued delay that we have had has been most discouraging.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. Marcus Lipton: My hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) has made out a very persuasive case. I appreciate that from the point of view of Ministers and Government Departments the most unpopular of all the Adjournment debates is the one that takes place immediately before the House rises for any Recess. When all his Ministerial colleagues have fled the scene, a Minister is put on duty to reply to the not unimportant subject that is sometimes raised and for which the last Adjournment debate before the Recess provides the only opportunity.
When I raised this matter in the House in February the question that I put to the President of the Board of Trade was related to the Inter-departmental Committee. We have had no official statement yet about it, and I hope that the Minister of State will be able to tell us something about it today. I have reason to believe that the Committee has recommended moving the August Bank Holiday to the first half of September. If that is so, the time has come for the Government to make up their mind whether or not to accept what I believe to be the recommendation of the Committee.
I know that there are many problems. The question is tied up with school holidays, industrial holidays and so on,

as my hon. Friend has pointed out. I agreed with the President of the Board of Trade when he said that there is no simple answer to the problem, but he said, on 2nd February:
Anything we can do to spread out the holiday season and avoid these ridiculous peaks will be very valuable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd February, 1961; Vol. 633, c. 1166.]
I suggested to him that it would be in the public interest and would spread the peak demands on transport and accommodation if the August Bank Holiday were celebrated in the first half of September. He replied that this was precisely the sort of suggestion that ought to be considered. Several weeks have now elapsed, and I hope that the matter has been considered. This is perhaps a topical moment for the Minister of State to make an epoch-making announcement on the subject.
There is a lot to be said for abolishing the Whit-Monday Bank Holiday. It is completely disregarded in the older universities, where Whit-Monday happens to come in the middle of the summer term and is a working day. That is, at least, the case at Oxford. I do not know whether it is so at Cambridge. But as the abolition of the Whit-Monday Bank Holiday has been accepted for a long time in the two older universities, if we gave the public a quid pro quo in the shape of a September Bank Holiday it would be found most acceptable.
All the arguments are known. They have been deployed briefly by my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln and I hope that we shall have an encouraging reply from the Minister of State.

4.42 p.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I very much welcome the opportunity this debate affords to give publicity to the need for action by the many interests involved to secure a wider spread of the holiday season. I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. de Freitas) for telling me beforehand something about what he intended to say, because this is a very wide-ranging subject and my remarks, in the brief time at my disposal, cannot cover all the ground. I shall take careful note of the points he has raised and will look carefully also


at the intervention made by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton).
The hon. Member for Lincoln made some telling points, particularly about the growth of the holiday habit. The number of people taking holidays away from home has roughly doubled since the years immediately before the War, and is still rising. No less than two-thirds of these holidaymakers start their holidays in July or August, and, what is even worse from the transport point of view, over three-quarters start at the weekends.
I shall now deal mainly with the question of spreading the holidays, though I recognise that Bank Holidays, and their position in the calendar, bear upon the matter. I shall deal with them before I sit down. I think that we all recognise today, as we did when the House debated the subject in February last year, that the present concentration of holidays into a very short period is undesirable from many points of view.
The hon. Member for Lincoln has described the general effects, including the adverse effects on foreign tourists who may come to this country expecting a green and pleasant land and find it heavily congested with domestic holidaymakers. There are also the appalling traffic problems and, what is more important, the frustration and inefficient use of the country's resources. I do not propose to go over the ground that he covered, except to say that the Government recognise the importance of achieving better arrangements, and it is on that account that an Inter-departmental Committee was set up last year to examine the issues.
For years, the cry of the holiday trade has been, "why does not somebody do something?" The general public are now beginning to adopt the same cry. But it is always easier to join that cry than to be amongst those who play their part in putting these things right. The hon. Member for Brixton referred to some of the complications and difficulties. We cannot just brush them aside and say that we will arrive at an easy solution, for there is no easy solution because of the complications and the diverse interests which have to be considered.
It is indeed a big social problem which affects people in all walks of life, yet it does so in an area which is peculiarly personal, an area in which the Government's task is to create the right climate of opinion rather than interfere with personal preference. Some like their holiday early. Others prefer it late. Some like to hitch it to the Bank Holiday, while others would keep as far away from the Bank Holiday as they possibly could. Some like crowds, and others like solitude.
One might have supposed that, with such a variety of tastes, the holiday season would have spread naturally over most of the summer months and maybe into the spring and autumn as well. It probably would but for two things, namely, the habit of many industrial concerns of closing for their annual holidays during the peak period, and the very understandable reluctance of the parents of school children to go away other than in the school holidays.
The House must not think that this is a state of affairs which the Government can put right by a wave of the hand, so to speak. The British Travel and Holidays Association, which is largely financed by a Government grant, carries out a campaign each year to extend the holiday season, but I say here and now that anything in the nature of compulsion is out of the question. For example, the Government have no powers to dictate to the educational authorities when they shall close their schools, nor to direct industrial establishments when to take their holidays.
I want to give the House some idea of the size of the problem in addition to its complexities. The holiday dates of about 6 million employees in manufacturing industry and coal mining are determined by the closure of their places of employment. Nearly three-fifths of all closures cover at least one of the two peak holiday weeks. Education authorities naturally put educational requirements first in planning their calendar while in industry holiday dates are often settled in democratic fashion between the employers and the employees. We cannot just sacrifice the requirements of the educational calendar to the desirability of spreading holidays more evenly. Both are important.
The country—and I emphasise the country and not the Government—is therefore faced with an exercise in how much each interest concerned can contribute—and it must be a contribution—towards a common solution.
The Government can help in identifying the facts and we therefore asked the Social Survey Division of the Central Office of Information to inquire into the factors which influence the choice of holiday dates. The Ministry of Labour also carried out an inquiry into the dates and form of holiday arrangements in industry.
The results are very interesting, particularly because they have cast doubt on various theories which were previously regarded as well recognised facts. For instance, it has long been said that a large proportion of holiday makers deliberately take their holidays to coincide with the August Bank Holiday weekend. In fact, the survey disclosed that only 6 per cent. of the sample thought that if the date were changed that would in itself affect their holiday plans. That is important in any consideration of the matter.

Mr. de Freitas: Is it not equally important that one gets into a habit, and that it is not a matter of what was thought?

Mr. Erroll: That may be, but it has been said that the strongest force in the world is the force of habit and one must take into account the fact that there is this habit and that, even if the date were changed, it would not in itself affect holiday plans, except for a mere 6 per cent. That is the finding of the Social Survey.

Mr. de Freitas: It was not correct.

Mr. Erroll: I am sorry to disagree with the hon. Member but I am just giving the results of the findings of the Social Survey which inquired into the public's wishes, habits and practice.

Mr. de Freitas: The wrong conclusion has been drawn.

Mr. Erroll: I am not drawing any conclusions, but merely stating what the facts are.
It is true that the removal of the August Bank Holiday from what is at present a peak of the holiday season

might have some beneficial effects, particularly if the large volume of day trippers which this holiday attracts—and this is a factor which we must take into account—could thus be diverted to a time when the roads were less crowded.
A change might also help to break down the tradition that August is the proper time to take a holiday. However, a very old-established holiday like this cannot be changed without the most careful thought. Moreover—and this is a point which I should like particularly to stress—it is very much easier to propose a change than to select a new date. Even among those who desire a change in the August Bank Holiday date, there are considerable differences of opinion as to the new date which should be chosen. These range from a later date in August to a date in October. I am not saying that the Government are setting their face against moving the August Bank Holiday to later in the year. All I am saying today is that the Government are not going to be rushed into an ill-considered decision.

Mr. Lipton: Is the Minister going to tell us what the Inter-departmental Committee recommended on this subject? That carries a lot of weight.

Mr. Erroll: I will deal with the Committee before I sit down.
Another thing which the inquiry showed was that 38 per cent. of all holiday parties were free to go away at any time during the summer, though in fact this category actually supplies about one-third of those who go away in the peak season.

Mr. de Freitas: It is habit.

Mr. Erroll: It may be habit, but habit is something to be reckoned with. Here is a large section of holiday makers who could make a big contribution to ironing out the peak if only it would do so. On the other hand, there are many who, were they free, would clearly prefer to avoid July and August.
The broad picture which emerged from the inquiry was that those who go on holiday in July and August fall into three roughly equal groups: those who choose the period freely; those who are constrained to choose it and have no objection; and those who are constrained to go then, but would clearly


prefer to go in another month. With greater freedom it would be reasonable to expect a considerable shift of dates, probably towards June.
We cannot achieve this freedom for employees by calling upon employers to change their dates of closure. These may be geared to the requirements of customers or dictated by a variety of economic reasons. Nor would it be well received by those employees who would prefer to go on taking their holidays at the traditional time. But I ask employers and employees alike to consider whether the traditional dates are necessarily the best. I have been encouraged, moreover, to see a spontaneous move in some places—notably in the motor car industry—to examine this afresh, and I hope that the publicity which this debate will afford will do something to awaken elsewhere a desire to re-examine the possibilities.
The hon. Gentleman referred to town weeks, or Wakes Weeks. The fact is that the traditional Lancashire Wakes Weeks are already spread in an organised fashion over the whole period from the end of June to the end of August, resulting in an even spread of holidays for the populations of these towns. This is clear evidence of what could be done by other towns in England and Wales which go in for a system of "town holidays", if only they would get together and organise a spread of their holiday dates.
I do not wish to minimise the difficulties which would be encountered, but, given the good will of all concerned—the local authorities, the education authorities and both sides of industry—I do not think that the problem would prove to be insuperable. Perhaps the local authority associations might give some thought to ways in which this sort of organised spreading of town holidays might be achieved.
A brief word about school holidays. Everyone knows that they play a big part in channelling holidays into July and August. But it is wrong to suggest that education authorities are being obtuse or selfish in framing their calendars. The problem of school holidays is one of the most intractable of all. Education authorities in general have not rejected the idea of making some con-

tribution to a common solution, but, as I said earlier, no one section of the community can be expected to settle this problem for the rest.
Various specifics have been suggested, including the one proposed by the hon. Gentleman; a four-term year; earlier G.C.E. examinations; a staggering of holidays by different education authorities, and many others. All these things must be considered not just by the Government, who, as I say have no power to direct, but by those who would have to operate them.
As for transport, the congestion could be eased at once if employers, employees, hotels and those who offer other holiday accommodation were prepared to co-operate so that more holidays could begin mid-week. This would do little to extend the season, but it would do much to reduce the weariness and frustration of holidaymakers going to or returning from their chosen holiday resorts. I commend this thought to all who have a common interest in bringing about an improvement—and there are many of them. The British Travel and Holidays Association estimates that the total expenditure on holidaymaking in the United Kingdom is £450 million a year. I only hope that we all get good value for the money we spend on our holidays. Is it unreasonable to suggest that some of this £450 million should be ploughed back by the holiday trade into a campaign to extend the season? There is already evidence to show that such a campaign could be successful.
The B.T.H.A. has run a campaign to encourage overseas visitors to come here out of the peak season, and this has been most successful. In 1960 we have had as many American visitors in the six off-season months as in the six summer months of 1950. In fact, the number of American citizens arriving in Britain in October last year was 33 per cent. higher than in the same month of the previous year.
I believe that the 38 per cent. of holidaymakers to whom I have referred as having a free choice provide a ready-made target for a sustained publicity campaign by the hoteliers, resort authorities and others.
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman referred to lengthening the period of British Summer Time. We hope that


this will play its part. The problem of Bank Holidays, as my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister explained to the House last week, is being examined. I am sorry that the hon. Member should have referred to the Prime Minister's reply in the terms he did.

Mr. de Freitas: What I said was the truth.

Mr. Erroll: It is far from the truth. Since 1955 nearly all those who have served a qualifying period of employment with their firms have been entitled to a holiday with pay, and virtually all workers now get paid for six public holidays a year. Other countries have different reasons, religious or otherwise, and different traditions, but I do not think that we must always be influenced by them. We must remember the interruption of the flow of production that another Bank Holiday would entail. That must be considered. The present evidence does not convince me that there is a case for an additional Bank Holiday, but we are certainly looking at it, among all the other matters.
In the moment that remains I want to refer to the Inter-Departmental Committee, because this Committee is composed entirely of officials who, as a Committee, tender their advice to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade. He does not think that the Committee's Report to him should be published as such, since it represents the views of officials to a Minister, but I have drawn on the Committee's findings in preparing my reply to the debate, and Government policy in this complicated field will be much assisted by the Committee's Report, as well as

by such additional advice as it may be asked to provide from time to time.

Mr. de Freitas: Will the right hon. Gentleman promise to look at what I have said in HANSARD. For him to talk as he did about holidays in Albania and elsewhere shows that he did not listen to what I said.

Mr. Erroll: I listened very carefully.
We must remember that concentrated holidays are not peculiar to Great Britain. Nor is the practice of another country the one which we must necessarily follow in all its aspects. Various European countries have their holiday problems, and their individual solutions. These have been or are being studied by the Inter-Departmental Committee. These studies have disclosed that most of the causes of the present-day holiday congestion and the remedies for it are inter-dependent and interlocking. For example, earlier school holidays would not reduce the congestion unless industrial holidays were also altered.
The Government, therefore, prefer to await the outcome of discussions which are still in progress before they put forward any positive suggestions for handling a situation in which any restraints on liberty of choice would be unthinkable, and in which the rights or views of any section of the community, be it educational, industrial or the holiday trade, cannot be overridden for the benefit of some other section.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Five o'clock, till Tuesday, 11th April, pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 28th March.